


Information Archive Codex - The Legacy Series

by TheChozoHuntress



Category: Metroid Series
Genre: Codex Entries, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-14 11:54:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 21,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21015362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheChozoHuntress/pseuds/TheChozoHuntress
Summary: A codex archive of information relating to the history of the Sol-Daiban Galaxy, the conflicts with the Kromus space pirates, and the events leading to the Invasion of Zebes and Samus Aran's 'Zero Mission'.





	1. Table of Contents

**Author's Note:**

> It goes without saying that [The Past is Prologue](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12887796), and its associated stories to come, are an Alternate Setting to that of Metroid Canon, resulting from my own work in filling the massive holes and gaps in the setting's own lore. This Codex, currently a living document with constant updates and changes as I further develop the universe, will provide information on the history of setting, much lore, and other details to help the universe I write in grow as a living work. A number of my own other favored fandoms were indeed incorperated as historical or setting lore, but adjustements were made all around to help blend them instead of just stacking one universe with the next. Much of the lore blending and all of the original content written here was developed not just for my fanfics, but also for a multi-fandom RP I help administrate, so expect a lot of references and integration of a lot of stuff.
> 
> Within the Codex, most information is presented from an in-universe point of view, though not all information is universally known. As such, future information will be added as it is included in the series, not before. Hopefully as the story progresses and more information is added, this codex, and further such entries will help expand the universe and settings within. 
> 
> As a note, most art used for visual aids are found via Google searches, and are not my own work. The Terran Confederation logo used in entry VII was an edit I did to match the same named faction from the Wing Commander franchise that inspired the human sphere in my stories, so that one is mine.

* * *

**Table of Contents:**

I. Dramatis Personæ

  
II. Settings and Locations

  
III. Organizations and Corporate Entities

  
IV. Common Lexicon

  
V. Important Terms and Technologies

  
VI. The Galactic Federation, Custodians of the Galaxy

  
VII. The Terran Confederation, the Reclaimers of Sol  
A. Technolgies of the Confederation  
B. ÆSIR, Heirs of the Titans

  
VIII. The Kromus, Scourge of the Galaxies  
A. Technologies of the Kromus

  
IX. The Chozo, a Study and History of the Precursors  
A. Biology, Dimorphism, and the Breeds  
B. Technologies of the Chozo

  
X. Samus Aran, Daughter of Two Worlds  
A. The Powered Suit

* * *


	2. Dramatis Personæ

**I. Dramatis Personæ**

_Samus Aran_ – The central protagonist. A human girl who is an effective perfect hybrid of human and Chozo genetics due to infusions performed to enable her greater survival and adaptability to Planet Zebes. Her birth-parents were known as military legends, which has cast a shadow over her attempts to reintegrate into human society.

_Maru_ – The last born Chozo and only remaining member of the Brood unaffected by sterility. He befriended Samus' birth-father just before the Kromus War broke out, and was the Chozo who found the three year old girl in the ruins of K-2L. He is legally Samus' adopted parent by Chozo law, as well as the donor of the genetic material used to augment and hybridize her.

_CMDR Adam Malkovich_ – The secondary protagonist. An officer in the Confederation military and an older brother-figure to Samus. Adam is one of few trusted with the secret of Samus' hybrid nature and her affiliation with the Chozo, alongside Admiral Dane and Adam's younger brother, the late Ian Malkovich.

_FLT-ADM Castor Dane_ – Commanding officer of the Seventh Fleet, and a veteran leader of the Kromus War. Dane lost his wife and sons to the Kromus when the planet Beacon was decimated, and came to see John Aran as family after the then 2nd Lieutenant took command of an almost failed rescue operation and successfully extracted Dane and four other flag officers from Kromus imprisonment. He sees Samus like a granddaughter and sponsored her entry into the Confederation Army Officer Academy in Wyoming.

_Shaded Whisper_ – A Chozo formel who is not native to the Zebesian Nest, but brought valuable and needed knowledge and skills to Project M, the development efforts to create a bioweapon that could combat the threat of a parasitic lifeform on planet Naraka designated the "X". Her true origins, despite claiming to be from the vanished M'k'na Nest, are unknown.

_Ridley_ – The Supreme Commander of the former Kromus Imperium, and of the fragmented factions collectively known as the Kromus Space Pirates. His true species was unknown, or if he may even have been the last remaining member of his race. He was presumed killed in the Siege of Krom, defeated by Field Captain John Aran of the 117th ÆSIR Special Forces.

_The Mother Brain_ – The central supercomputer biomass that manages all Chozo facilities related to the Zebes Nest, created by Shaded Whisper soon after her arrival on Zebes. Despite presenting itself as being without self-ambition, the Mother Brain seems to have a contempt for 'lesser' lifeforms, one shared by Shaded Whisper, and a sense of disdain for many of the inhabitants of the Nest.


	3. Settings and Locations

**II. Settings and Locations**

_Orion Spur_ – The primary explored region of Sol-Daiban Galaxy, and home to several dozen known Tier 3 to Tier 2 civilizations, including the Terran Confederation, the Kilrathi Assembly of Clans, and the Galactic Federation. The Spur has a length of approximately 7.6 kiloparsecs, an average width of 1 kiloparsec, and a depth of approximately 306 parsecs, with an estimated 800 million to 1 billion stars within the region.

_Daiban_ – Capitol of the Galactic Federation, settled and established by the Mantu preceding the Machine War, located in the Al'kya System of the Cyngus sector. Daiban is primarily a planet wide city, with districts divided by political, residential, and industrial regions. The Galactic Federation Police are headquartered in the capitol district, as is the Congressional Dome and the office of the High Chairman. The legally registered Bounty Hunting guilds also have offices in the lower levels of the industrial district, and the general quarter, the primary residential districts of the planet, is home to one trillion residents. Few areas of the planet remain natural and undeveloped after three hundred years as the center of the Federation.

_North American Republic_ – Consisting of the remaining areas of the former United States, and the provincial territories of Canada, the North American Republic is one of the nations of Terra that has endure much devastation and yet still has preserved much of the culture considered that of the region. Following the first Machine War in the late 2200s, about a fourth of the territory of the United States was decimated and the government capitol lost. By the second Machine War in the 2700s, due to bombardments in the Covenant and Kilrathi Wars, about half the territory of the former United States was considered unusable for habitation, but previously had united with the remains of the Canadian providences and Mexico in the late 2400s to form the United Republic of North America. Notable surviving region-states are Wyoming, home of the Mountain Point Confederation Officer Academy, Iowa, the Newfoundland region, the Dakota Range, the Greater Chicago Industrial Sector, British Columbia, and the Unified Eastern Coast. The regional capitol of the NAR is Niagra Falls, shared between New York and Ontairo.

_Terra_ – Also known as Sol-III, and simply "Earth" in the past, Terra is the homeworld and origin of the human species, located in the Gould Belt of the Orion Arm. At some point in the very distant past, over one hundred thousand years before the common era, the ancient Terrans were among the most advanced races in the galaxy, rivaling the now mythic Forerunners until a war erupted as a result of Forerunner arrogance and wounded pride following Terran efforts to stop the spread of a hyper-virulent parasite known as the Flood, resulting in a narrow defeat of the Terrans and forced 'devolution' to a primitive stone age state of development. In modern times, Terra is the center of the Terran Confederation, and despite still recovering from multiple planetary bombardments, still remains the symbol of human home and determination. The current capitol resides in Tokyo-II for the duration of the Iwata Administration.

_Calliope-IX_ – One of many small mining colonies that is considered technically part of the Confederation, but in practice answers more to Federation affiliated corporations. Calliope-IX is a small habitable moon orbiting the gas giant Calliope in the Dakona system, and often is referred to as a backwater mudball better serving to send someone there when you want to be rid of them. In the early 2800s, it was more frequented and considered of more value when the mining focus had been on the titanium veins found on the moon, but ever since the Kromus War, when the Federation expedited the mining and took possession of the remaining titanium ore, the only thing that has sustained the colony has been the various precious gems and metals that still pepper the moon. It is also the site of a low security labor prison.

_K-2L_ – Located in IR-271 system within the Archite Span, located inside the area between the Orion-Sagittarius Transit and the Centaurus Arm, K-2L was, and still is, perhaps the farthest reaching Terran colony, a small outpost of a few hundred that mined and processed Afloraltite. It's importance was ironically greater than its meager size as a planet let on, as Afloraltite is a rare incendiary mineral within the explored regions of the Orion Spur that is processed into a high-energy hyperfuel used by many Federation slipdrives. In 2961, it was the site of the K-2L Massacre; a Kromus legion sieged the colony and slaughtered the entire population, including ÆSIR veterans John and Virginia Aran. Only three-year-old Samus Aran survived the massacre to be rescued by the Chozo tiercel Maru. No one has been back to the planet since then.

* * *

_Naraka_ – Previously known in Chozo records as SR388, Naraka is a strange planet in the NGC-1918388 system, located just inside the as yet uncharted Orion-Cygnus intersection area. Given its name by the Gra'mou Chozo Flock, the planet orbits an x-ray binary system that contains a class G yellow main sequence star and a small stellar mass black hole of unknown origins, and is home to many aggressively evolved species, including an assimilative polymorphic life form codenamed 'Parasite X'. There are strangely some signs of an ancient civilization that once flourished on Naraka, but only ruins now remain. These ruins were converted by the Gra'mou into a genetics facility for engineering the bioenergy consuming parasitoid Metroid after having discovered the X while searching for what was revealed to be veins of Aetherite.

_Zebes_ – Second orbital planet in the FS-176 star system, located just at the edge of the Outer Core Belt. Over seven thousand light-years from the IR-271 system at the edge of Federation space, Zebes is the one time capitol of the Ancient Chozo Empire that spanned hundreds of thousands of years across at least two primary galaxies billions of light-years apart. Its far removal from the territories of the Galactic Federation within the Orion Spur means that its existence and significance remains largely a secret, but Zebes remains home to a good portion of the remaining modern Chozo, as well as functional capitol of what Nest Colonies remain, and is the single largest cache of Ancient Chozo technologies in the Sol-Daiban galaxy. Notable landmarks include the Zebesian Nest located within Qro'mal Mountain, and the ancient capitol city of Chozodia, home of the Halls of I'ya'dn. Less than thirty kilometers from the ancient capitol is the crash site of an ancient ship wreck, with a blackened stretch that runs between it and Chozodia City known as the Dead Scar.


	4. Organizations and Corporate Entities

**III. Organizations and Corporate Entities**

_Galactic Federation_ – The federal government reigning over the Orion Spur of the Sol-Daiban Galaxy, centralized on planet Daiban. Initially founded in 2568 Common Era as the Coalition of Freed Worlds in the aftermath of the Covenant War and the Reclamation, the Coalition underwent a reformation in 2681 just prior to the Second Machine War, guided by the Chozo Brood into what is now the Galactic Federation. Currently, the Federation claims to include over twenty thousand system worlds throughout a length of approximately ten thousand light-years of the explored Orion Spur, though many are in fact small mining stations, dome-cities, or world station platforms orbiting otherwise uninhabitable planets.

_Terran Confederation_ – The nominal government of Terra and its affiliated colony systems, established in 2583 following the economic and political reorganization of the Unified Earth Government. Within forty-five years, the rebuilding Confederation was already faced with the first of a chain of wars that would conclude with the near extinction of the human race, and the inclusion of Terrans into the Galactic Federation at the insistence of the Chozo Brood following the end of the Machine War in 2763. As of 2976, the Confederation controls two hundred and fifty star systems over a centralized sphere of sixty-five parsecs, in addition to various mining outposts throughout the Orion Spur, and accounts for approximately fifty billion of the eighty-seven billion humans that are affiliated with the Galactic Federation.

_Department of Advanced Warfare (DAW)_ – Functional Successor to the UNSC era Office of Naval Intelligence and the post-Kilrathi War era Strategic Readiness Agency. DAW is the force behind military projects such as the ÆSIR corps and the development of the Newtype AI known as Cora, with a directive to plan for and prevent the destruction of the Confederation, the human species, and humanity's closest allies.

_Advanced Mechanics and Defense Concepts (AMDC)_ – A Confederation defense contractor that specializes in infantry weapons and armor development. They are most noted for their development of the ÆSIR augmentations and powered combat armor made famous in the Kromus war, designed by project leader Theodora Stark, as well as the MR-1 ÆSIR MagRail Magnum and the X-71 Particle Pulse Rifle, the standard sidearm and assault arm of the ÆSIR troopers.

_The Coalition for Organized Galactic Stability (COGS)_ – An elite bounty hunting guild with a particular emphasis on expanding Federation oversight. Despite an obvious common interest, the COGS often interfere and compete with the Federation Freelancers, despite the latter being directly empowered and employees by the Galactic Congress.

_Big Shot Network_ – The largest channel for independent Bounty Hunters in the Federation. New open bounties and regional information is broadcast via the popular self-named info-show, as well as tips and introductory programs for new and inexperienced hunters.

_Daiban Galactic Media Network_– The centralized and federally controlled official media network of the Galactic Federation. News releases are heavily regulated and overseen by a government office to control information.


	5. Common Lexicon

**III. Common Lexicon**

_Member System_ – A recognized member of the Galactic Federation, in theory recognized as equal in representation to all other worlds in the Federation. In practice, however, many worlds outside the original founding systems and species are treated as lessers with little weight to decisions made by the Federation Congress, if any say at all.

_World Station_ – An artificially created space station 'world', alternatively known as platforms. There are three primary types: orbital, solar, and stellar. All three categories are entirely artificial, and are distinguished only by size and where they are positioned. Orbital world stations orbit a planet or large moon, solar stations revolve around a system's sun, and stellar stations exist in the expanses of interstellar space, typically serving as travel stops and waypoints over the vast distances.

_Seguru_ – The currency of the Federation. Most client systems have a standardized usage on the Seguru, except for entities such as the Terra Confederation and the Sangheili Nation States. Exchange rates are typically negotiated with basis on economic standing, but a general rule is 1 Seguru equals 1.5 Confederation credits.

_Confederation Credit_ – The standard currency of the Terran Confederation. Used throughout Confederation controlled space, and with a rate of exchange to the Federation Segeru of 1.5 credits to 1 Seguru. Despite this, many Federation member worlds and affiliated corporations refuse to accept the Confed Credit and require exchange before payment transactions.

_Credit Chit_ – A physical chip for loading a set value of Confederation credits without giving account information to a merchant, or to physically transfer currency between parties. Often the Chit is used when wanting to avoid tracing a transaction back to one or more involved parties.

_Navcom_ – The navigational AI systems that store jump point locations, and calculate the billions of equations a second necessary for travel through slipspace, as well as map and store safe corridors through the quantum slipstream. Unlike the more common AIs used by the Confederation that have personality traits and interact with ship's crews, an Navcom AI only processes and handles navigation tasks and has no mind of its own accord.

_Novae Galactic Catalogue_ – Also known as the NGC, this revised and inclusive cataloguing system was developed to standardize how to classify and catalogue uncharted and unnamed celestial objects or stellar systems contained in the twenty-five thousand light year region of the Orion Spur, as well as a five thousand light year span into the transition zones between the Spur and the Galactic Arms it intersects with. The Novae Galactic Catalogue encompasses a number of preceding archives, including the previous Messier Object catalogue, the original New General Catalogue, and the Henry Draper Catalogue, and currently catalogues over five million previously undocumented stellar objects within the reach of the Spur.

_Galactic Federation Standard Time(GFST)_ – a twenty-eight hour cycle based on the Daiban planetary rotation. Day begins at 0000, ends at 2759. Primarily used for GFP reports and official government processing.

* * *


	6. Important Terms and Technologies

**V. Important Terms and Technologies**

_The Quantum Slipstream_ – A strange hyper-dimensional realm that exists above the normal planes of space-time. The Slipstream is also known as the Quintessence Terminus, or the Q-T Field, where the life energy of the multiverse intersects with the lower planes. Despite its name, the Q-T Field is not the same as the Aether Stream, but a layer between the cosmic lifestream itself and the other planes. The Ancient Chozo long ago learned how to access the Slipstream as a method of traveling faster than light by using aetherite crystals to power flux drive arrays, allowing them to traverse the great expanse between their home galaxy of GN-z11 and the other galaxies of the universe. While immensely faster travel through space-time is possible within the Slipstream than most other methods of translight travel, this is tempered by the fact that quantum echoes of planets, stars, and other large gravitational masses must be charted and navigated, as intersecting with the echo of a planet or a star could tear apart a traversing vessel.

_Aetherite_ – A extremely rare crystalline mineral that was used heavily in almost every aspect of Ancient Chozo technology. Considered to be crystallized aether, hence the name, aetherite is a conduit that channels energy from the vaulted Aether Stream, the life energy of the cosmos itself, and is known to form in highly charged intersections of aether lines, or nexuses. No known sources of aetherite exist within the explored Sol-Daiban galaxy, meaning all Aetherite powered engine drives and weapons that have been created since the Ancients arrived are forced to reuse the crystals that the Ancients brought with them on their thirty-six billion light-year journey. The most common need for aetherite is as the primary array component of a Flux Drive. As a power source, aetherite has no limit of time, but the crystals can be exhausted if power is channeled out faster than it can replenished. An aetherite crystal that has been repeatedly exhausted in its ability to channel the Aether will crack and eventually shatter, rendering it useless.

_Afloraltite_ – A highly energized crystalline material that, when processed into a fuel source, allows for energy outputs necessary to open the rifts into Slipspace and allow rapid travels without draining the primary power sectors of the traveling starship. The refined hyperfuel processed from Afloraltite is used as the primary energy catalyst for Fornax Translight Stellar Entanglement Engines, requiring little fuel in exchange for the energy surge required for slipspace entry. However, pure unprocessed Afloraltite is volatile, and while physically stable enough for mining and even careful fragmentation, any significant energy charge can and will spark an incendiary reaction capable of immense explosive power. Mere kilograms are capable of generating multi-ton explosions if a charged reaction were to occur, which has led to smaller mining operations typically managed by workers with experience with highly volatile materials in remote areas outside the main region of Federation territory.

_Translight Slipdrive_ – A Faster than Light engine that was initially developed, in Terran reckoning, by Wallace Fujikawa and Tobias Shaw based on data of the legendary Dimensional Wave Motion Engine technology following the first Machine War of the late 2280s. Instead of accessing the higher levels of slipspace in a spatial-folding warp jump via the field stabilizing generating Iskandarian crystals used to attune a Wave Motion Engine, the Shaw-Fujikawa Translight drive brute forces entry into the slipspace and can be powered via more conventional fusion reactors. The early UNSC drives typically allowed speed of 2.5 light-years a day travel, reaching upward of 4 light-years a day prior to the Covenant War, while the Forerunner derived pattern borer drives used by the Covenant were capable of speeds reaching up to 912 light-years a day travel. Following the recovery in the aftermath of the second Machine War, a new variant of slipdrive was developed from Mantu technologies, known as the Translight Stellar Entanglement Engine, or as it quickly became known, the Fornax Drive, after the Fornax Stellar Reach corporation that developed them, with models able to reach speeds exceeding 1000 light-years a day. The later development of the Reclaimer-class Slipdrive in 2956, during the Kromus War, brought Confederation military grade slipdrives to capability of speeds over 13,000 light-years a day travel. 

_Akwende Jump Drive_ – A variant of the Slipdrive that focuses on stimulation of specific gravitonic particles, known now as Akwende Particles, to open compressed folds in space time known as Jump Points. Short distance slipspace “hops" are also possible to better facilitate travel between Jump Points so that a transition through a system doesn’t take the course of months to years, maxing out conventional slipspace travel at no more than a dozen light years a day speeds. The Jump Drive was named for Shari Akwende in 2586 after she discovered gravitational intersections that allow access to natural compressed space-time corridors when using specific functions of a Shaw-Fujikawa slipdrive. The following developed jump drive came in the end of the 2590s as the fledgling Confederation was forced to downsize asset sizes in terms of ships and mobile stations, though use of the more powerful traditional slipdrive was kept for the larger vessels as they were constructed and war efforts demanded further use of the higher slipspace speeds. In the two hundred year relative peace between the end of the Machine War and the start of the Kromus War, Jump Drive became a staple of the Federation for civilian and police vessels and more economical for the Confederation military’s smaller ships and fighters. 

_Quantum Wave Engine_ –Derived from salvaged Machine Empire vessels, the secrets of the Wave Motion Engine combined with Confederation understanding of Forerunner technologies gave way to something that may potentially have surpassed both. Developed in secret over the course of twenty years, the Quantum Wave Drive is sublight, FTL, and weapons power combined into one, enabling a sublight velocity far greater than a ship of the _Concordia's_ size and mass would be capable of, thrusting the vessel into a hyper-folded rift through space-time that can cross thousands of parsecs in a day, and channeling the immense energies generated by the engine into intense electro-charges to charge the devastating S-MAC array of the TCS _Concordia_ that are capable of almost fifty gigatons of kinetic power a round with a 500 ton shell. The prototype engine array currently installed on the _Concordia_ is capable of translight speeds exceeding 750 light-years an hour, though even this is not the highest velocity it is theoretically capable of reaching. 

_Powered Armor/Suit_ – Artificial, self-powered exoskeletons designed to protect and/or augment the natural physical abilities of the wearer. Typically these are the purview of military units or highly specialized mercenaries and bounty hunters, with unique equipment and weapons being a staple for the latter. Powered suits come in many shapes and sizes from fully enveloping suits of armor to minimalist joints and connectors worn on only a few portions of body. 

_Parsecs and Lights_ – Measurements of interstellar distances are commonly rated in parsecs, which are a ratio of 3.26 light years per unit, and include magnitude ratios such as kiloparsec(per thousand), megaparsecs(per million), and gigaparsecs(per billion). Lights is a short form terminology of distance traveled to time elapsed ratio in relation to faster than light travel; ex, a typical slipspace capable transport is capable of speeds up to 140 lights per day. Common units include decalights, hectolights, and kilolights for denominations of ten, hundred and thousand rates of light years, respectively. Less commonly used is megalights, as this unit of distance to time velocity would apply for millions of light years per unit of time, a speed ratio not yet attained by any known civilization within the Sol-Daiban Galaxy.


	7. The Galactic Federation, Custodians of the Galaxy

**VI. The Galactic Federation, Custodians of the Galaxy**

Formed in the Common Era year of 2568 by former subject worlds of the now collapsed Covenant, the original form of the Galactic Federation was known as the Coalition of Freed Worlds. Initially an agreement of trade and mutual protection between the primarily non-militant races, the original ten systems began forming alliances with new species, eventually encountering the remains of the once vast Mantu Empire, now shattered and nomadic as a result of the destruction of their entire sector by the chain of supernovas that decimated their systems, and expanding their influence out from the Al’kya System in the Cygnus X-1 sector and outward through the Orion Spur. This gave the Coalition worlds some banded protection, as the Mantu were of a technological level similar to the former Covenant, but were generally more inclined to avoid conflicts when possible. Within sixty standard years, the Freed Worlds found themselves once more attempting to avoid destruction as the Kilrathi Empire began aggressively expanding out from their regions along both courses of the Spur, seemingly resuming the course of domination left by the Covenant as they had been claiming various salvage and abandoned Covenant bases with which the Kilrathi further enhanced their own technology and fleets. It was in 2629 CE that the Kilrathi encountered the Terrans, still rebuilding from the Covenant War and the reorganization of the United Earth Government into the Terran Confederation, leaving the Freed Worlds to watch as the Confederation waged a nearly forty year war with the conquest-crazed and quasi-Forerunner level armed Kilrathi, and ended the conflict with the destruction of the Kilrathi homeworld in 2669. The conflict made the Coalition wary of interacting with the Terrans, as many still remembered the Covenant War and the ferocity with which the humans fought against seemingly certain extinction. The lengths humanity was able to go to when fighting those conditions furthered paranoia about the Terrans and what they were capable of. By 2681, the Coalition was visited by representatives of the Chozo Brood, the last dying remnant of the ancient Chozo race, who helped guide the reformation of the Freed Worlds into the Galactic Federation. A little under twos decade later would be when the Machine Empire returned in full force in 2701 and plunged the known galaxy into a horrifying conflict the likes of which had not been seen since the height of the Covenant War.

The newly formed Federation watched in fear for the most part as the Sangheili Nation threw themselves almost gleefully into the conflict, while a battered and bitter, yet still vengeful Confederation brought everything it had left or had built up in the span of just under six decades between the end of the Kilrathi War and the Machine Empire's invasion even as the humans continuously pushed their technologies further and further. The Machine War raged for over sixty years, during which the Federation found itself relying heavily on the aid of the humans and their allies for survival. By the time the Empire mysteriously ceased hostilities and withdrew from the galaxy, most of the Orion Spur was left with so much to rebuild, especially the Terrans, who were cut down to approximately four and a half billion remaining throughout the known Galaxy within the Confederation itself. At the continued urging of the Chozo, the Federation extended thanks and an offer of membership to the Terrans. However, being in the position of nearly having been wiped out in the conflict, humanity was unable to see at the time that many in the Galactic Congress used their acceptance and inclusion as a way to place a metaphorical leash on Terran forces for their own purposes. Even after over two centuries, the Galactic Congress still has not granted Terra and other worlds full political representation as member systems of the Federation, an unspoken policy that some, like the Mantu representative Arba'dos Kea'ton, work toward eliminating.

At present, the Federation is composed of twenty thousand planets, moons, and colony world stations throughout fifteen hundred stellar systems in the Orion Spur of the Sol-Daiban Galaxy. There is, however, a great population disparity from one to another, particularly among the terrestrial colonies. A number of planets, mostly in the center of the Federation, are densely populated into the billions each, while others on the Outer Edge have no more than a few thousand inhabitants. Most planets fall between these two extremes with the average planetary population being approximately fifteen to twenty-five million residents of sentient species in cities of under fifty thousand. World stations also range from a minimum of several thousand citizens at the far edge of minor trading routes to a maximum of ten or fifteen million in the largest world stations along major trading routes. The norm for the average world station is between two to five million. Unlike planets, it eventually become more cost effective to pack as many people in to one area as possible because of the high fixed costs associated with environmental and gravitational manipulation. Beyond ten million residents, however, it becomes unsafe to maintain the number of atmospheric cyclers required to keep the environment at the proper equilibrium.

In total, there are just over twenty trillion registered citizens, though a sizable chunk of other unofficial residents also exists in the region. These include many in the Outer Systems whose families never registered them or are part of Terran colony systems thought lost following the First Machine War in the end of the 2200s. Estimates of these two demographics range from two to fifteen billion, depending on the source. The population of the Border Worlds Union is not included in these numbers, as the colonies that border the former Kilrathi Empire sued for independence from the Terran Confederation and succeeded in being recognized as such in 2673. As such, they are not members of the Federation. The Sangheili Nation States are also excluded as they are considered a ‘non-hostile foreign power’ with trade and diplomatic rights. Accounting for unaffiliated and unregistered populations, the total throughout the Orion Spur reaches a possible twenty-one trillion. Regional law enforcement numbers for the Orion Spur directly affiliated with the Federation reaches 14.25 billion officers of the Galactic Federation Police Force, with an additional 3.5 billion from the Confederation in military and/or peacekeeping services.

The population is distributed sporadically across the Federation in clusters, with centralization in the regions around the primary political centers of civilization within the Orion Spur. The "hub" of the Spur is the Inner Systems, centralized around the Al'kya system and the federal capitol of Daiban, near Cygnus X-1, and contains about one fifth of the territory of the Federation, but forty percent of the population. The middle of the Spur, or the Expansion Systems, reaches out from the outer edge of the Cygnus sector nebula and through the Confederation up to the Perseus Transit toward the rim, into the W51 Molecular Cloud on the coreward edge, and comprises sixty percent of Federation territory and about thirty percent of the population. The rest of the area and population belong to the Outer Systems, which are mostly thinly populated trade ports, resource gathering outposts, and rural colonies primarily within the Perseus Transit on the rimward end and the some of the coreward regions through the Sagittarius Arm. Connecting the regions are the major trading routes, much more densely populated than the surrounding area. Being included in a trading hub is almost guaranteed to provide prosperity, and the opposite is true of those systems bypassed by a new route.

The Federation officially operates on a form of what Terrans recognize as a federal representation republic combined with aspects of neo-feudalism. Officials are elected as representatives and meet in the capitol on Daiban to form the Galactic Congress, made up of the Lower Assembly and the Greater Assembly, which is lead by the High Chairman of the Federation, and the Member Systems are able to function under their own governments and laws so long as there are no conflicts with those established on the galactic federal level. In theory, every Member System is supposed to be represented by their own elected Councilor or Ambassador, allowing each species to voice their concerns and views on galactic affairs and bylaws and have effect on the course of the Federation. In practice, despite the inclusion of the embassy member systems in the Lower Assembly to draft and propose laws, and allowance of observation by the Ambassadors of those systems in the Greater Assembly, they are allowed little beyond giving views and opinions while only the Councilors of the Greater Assembly have real power to vote and institute policies. This policy of elite favoring and consolidation of power to the central systems has frustrated many, including the Terran Confederation, who have still been denied a seat in the Greater Assembly after two centuries, on the grounds of “considerations to be taken" every time the matter is brought up.

Politically, there are a number of factions that center around cohesive ideologies in how the course of the Orion Spur, and in theory, the Sol-Daiban Galaxy, is to be governed. The three most well known and influential are the Fro'mal, the Praetareus, and the Reconcilers, and each has different views of how the Federation should be managed and the influances that should be given to the member systems outside the founder worlds, as well as the extent of restrictions to be placed on military assets of the member systems that maintain defense groups and militias.

The Fro'mal Faction takes its name from the Divolu word for "originators" or "founders", and proscribe stability in the status quo, to avoid change and the chaos thereof. Comprised primarily of members of the Divolu, Alphinians, and Yonhet species, along with some of the Ylla and Mantu in their numbers, a drive toward centralized power in the hands of the Founder elites has been motive for many of the senior members of this political faction that has lasted since the formal founding of the Federation. They ascribe resolution of conflicts by use of peace keepers and specialized agents, as opposed to an active and large scale armed military such as those maintained by the Terran Confederation and the Sangheili, and thus are the faction responsible for many of the policies that constrain armed forces growth, such as the required use of Aurora Units in capital class vessels, and the size-mass restrictions on combat vessels.

The Praetareus faction was founded in the aftermath of the earliest Kromus harassment in the 2910s, and gained some significant favor after the war was ignited with the burning of Beacon. Aggressively expansionist and ascribing to an ideology of centralized military power, the Praetareus faction is most popular with elected representatives of the Ok'th-lhu, the Q'roq'us, the Phrygisians, and has some support from a number embassy member systems, including the Tokargans, several human colonies, a large number of Jiralhanae, and many of the Firekkans. The common view of the Praetareus faction is that the Galactic Federation must be prepared to face any external aggressor with a unified force, and has called for placing all military and self-defense assets of Federation Member systems under the direct authority of a central Federation military command. This obviously puts the Praetareus at many ideological odds with the factionists of the older Fro'mal Faction, and some contention with the Reconcilers.

After the devastation left in the aftermath of the Second Machine War, and the Chozo Brood re-emerged from their sanctuaries to press once more the importance of bringing the humans of the Confederation into the fold of the Galactic Federation, the Reconcilers were formed from the ideologies of cooperation with all the worlds within and without the Orion Spur. The unique identity of each member system are what the Reconcilers consider key to the Federation, and the strengthening of each member's individual defenses to contribute to a networked web instead of centralizing military power into the hands of one singular organization is their view of how to better combat the threats they face. The Reconciler Faction first had leadership in the Mantu representative of the 2770s, and as was then, the current headrunner of the faction, as well as current Chairman of the Galactic Federation itself, is a Mantu, Arba'dos Kea'ton. 

It's important to note that despite its name, the Galactic Federation is not actually "galactic" except in the sense that the Federation considers the entire Sol-Daiban Galaxy part of its rightful territory, regardless that it has not actually surveyed and explored much of the galaxy at large. The actual territory of the Federation is primarily within the Orion Spur, with everything outside the three kiloparsec span of the settled Spur being considered the Unknown Regions. This includes the Perseus Transition up to the Cygnus Arm Intersection, the neighboring regions of the Perseus Arm, and almost all areas within and past the Sagittarius Intersection. Also, despite being within the Orion Spur, some territories are not actually part of the Federation due to reluctant agreements made with the Sangheili Nation States, as well as the generally hostile nature of the Jiranhalae at large, the Banished, and of course, the scattered factions of the Kromus, who are estimated to number at least three trillion hiding out in just the Unknown Regions of the galaxy alone, possibly even more still in the Large Magellanic Cloud and in the outer unexplored regions of dark space.


	8. The Terran Confederation, Reclaimers of Sol

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**VII. The Terran Confederation, Reclaimers of Sol**

The history of the Terrans is long, complex, and rife with conflict. When one examines the full scope of what has been uncovered of human origin and how far humanity has risen, fallen, and risen again, many would question how a race such as humans has survived all the cataclysms they have endured and overcome. Once, humanity believed itself to be less than ten thousand years old in its modern incarnation. The truth, as it was discovered, was even further from their assumption, as ruins across the Orion Spur began to reveal humanity was far older than any had suspected.

Over ten million years ago, the humans of old began reaching out into the star system that would one day become called Sol, settling first in the moons of the gas giants, then eventually discovering how to open the hyper-realms of translight space, a technology they would further refine into what is now known as the Quantum Dimensional Wave Motion Engine. From there, they made the leap to Alpha Centauri, then further and further as they refined and perfected the Wave Motion technology until they were crossing thousands of light years in a matter of hours. In the time of the great Highest Age of the Forerunners, the ancient humans were setting down the foundations of their future in the cosmos as they sent out colonial seed ships to depart their home galaxy and settle out in the vast unknown to ensure their species would never die out. Triangulum and Andromeda were the first foot holds, and from there seed ships continued on. All the time that the Forerunners were assuming to succeed the Precursors as stewards of the galaxy, the humans were expanding their minds and reach, and proving why Responsibility was theirs to inherit.

It was during this period of expansion that the humans encountered a rift into the gap between planes, a gap that would be come to be called the Void. At first the ancient humans thought nothing of the tear in reality, entering it and exploring the strange chaotic realm as their instinct of curiosity compelled them. It was once they had stepped beyond the bordermarches that they encountered a horrific entity, something that drove many to madness merely looking upon it. None from that expedition survived to return, but the door was opened, and humanity would come to be embroiled in their own cosmic war with the Void and the horrors it contained. By the end of a ten thousand year conflict, while the rift that mankind first found was closed, the entire galaxy had been damaged. The Forerunners would incite their jealous campaign of genocide against their Precursor creators, entire species driven to madness induced extinction, and humanity itself broken as a galactic power. It would be millions of years more and two more cycles of starting over before humanity was again ready to expand through the galaxy, but the secrets of the Wave Motion Drive had been lost by then, and the Slipspace pattern drives used by the Forerunners became more prevalent. As the millennia continued, humanity reverse engineered and adapted more and more of the Forerunners’ technology to catch back up to their previous levels. By 107,937 BCE, humanity nearly rivaled the Forerunner Ecumene, even developing weapons that could overpower many of the Forerunners’ own defensive technologies and almost gaining a foothold into higher bio-engineering.

And when the Flood arrived in 107,455 BCE, all chaos broke loose. The humans went into a panic as worlds were overrun by the virulent swarm, forcing them to turn their weapons on their own planets in effort to burn the strange parasite out. In addition, much like their ancestors, a number of ships repurposed go act as seed vessels escaped into slipspace and raced away from the galaxy in order to preserve the species. The fate of this convoy was never known, however. The result, while burning out the infested worlds, brought the humans into a decisive conflict with the Forerunners that consumed a thousand years. Even when proof of the Flood came to light, the Forerunners took humanity's efforts to cull the Flood as an arrogant assumption of the Mantle of Responsibility, and punished them with forced artificial de-evolution into a hunter-gatherer state of development. When the Flood returned nearly ten thousand years later, the price of Forerunner arrogance was paid, and over the centuries were forced to initiate both of their last resort plans for the Flood returning; a preservation indexing of as many species of life as they could save, and the activation of the Halo Array to sterilize the galaxy of all life and allow a reseeding of the saved life forms to repopulate the span. This included the evolutionarily regressed humanity, whom the surviving Forerunners left with a genetic key sequence, or “genesong", that marked them as the inheritors of the Ecumene and the Mantle of Responsibility.

Over the course of a hundred thousand years, humanity as a species struggled to reclaim what it had lost. At least twice in that span, humanity was visited and guided by the Chozo Ancients in efforts to uphold not only their own Mantle of Guidance, but also to make sure that the legacy of the Forerunners was claimed by the humans as intended. The later generation of Chozo attempted to mimic the work of their ancestors, an attempt that ended in accidentally influencing humanity into believing the Chozo to be gods, and forcing the Brood to abandon their efforts. It would be over five thousand years more before humanity reached another industrialization period and built back to a once again renewed space age. By the 1940s, during the onset of the second great World War, the first true efforts into what would be known as the super soldier were undertaken. The results of these efforts would produce two ultimate examples of the concept; Johann Schmidt, the Red Skull, and Steven Rogers, Captain America. The now mythical Erskine Super Soldier Serum was capable of increasing all traits of the augmented subjects to immense levels, including psychological traits and moral dispositions. It also resulted in many of humanity's ancestral traits being 'activated' in both Schmidt and Rogers, and despite being considered lost in its original and perfected form, the advent of this is considered to be the beginning of Earth's Age of Heroes. Over the following decades, secret marvels were created that could and would change humanity's place in the cosmos. During the Cold War, a size altering particle was discovered, enabling mass compression and expansion of immense proportions, and even access into the quantum particle realm that crisscrossed the planar layers of the universe. Incredible suits of powered armor known as the Iron Man armor were created by Anthony Stark in the later part of 2010, including a weaponized form of muon plasma thruster that would not be seen again for almost a thousand years after his death. Mages revealed themselves to the world, genetic mutations granting amazing gifts, and incredible and terrifying forces unveiled to an ignorant humanity. The culmination of this era came to a crashing end in 2018, after a warlord from the Andromeda Galaxy named Thanos collected the six Infinity Stones in a violent campaign of universal culling. Half of all lifeforms in the universe were blinked out of existence by what was later known as the Snap. Unlike what Thanos had expected, his desire to erase half of sapient dominant life was taken to be literally all life, leaving the universe in the exact same position he had thought he was saving it from. Making matters worse, he used the Stones to shatter themselves, seemingly destroying them. For five years, the cosmos dealt with the aftermath, and it was only when a group of of individuals from across the local galactic group took the greatest risks in traversing the time stream via the quantum realm that they were able to retrieve the Stones from different points in history in now parallel continuums, united them as Thanos had, and undid his Snap with one of their own. A cataclysmic battle between these heroes and a Thanos from one of those alternate continuums brought about a third Snap that wiped this other Thanos and all his loyal forces, as well as those of the prime continuum Thanos, from existence. The Stones were restored to their proper places in time, but it left the prime timeline damaged from the Shattering. Planar walls slammed shut tight, magical fields weakened, and the fantastic technologies of the Heroes Age slowly faded into the mundane. Humanity was not set back as it had been in the distant past, but an era of wonders was over, and would not be seen again for centuries.

Yet mankind continued to dream and reach for the stars that they long ago had journeyed. In the mid decades of the twenty-first century, the moon was transformed into a station for construction and expansion into the outer reaches. Domed cities held populations of hundred, turning the moon in the first of many steps back into the expanse. The inner planets were colonized in 2080, a study station orbiting Venus while Mars was slowly terraformed to allow human colonization. Soon into the 22nd century, the moons of the outer planets were reached and settled. Attempts to break the lightspeed limits were begun, and by the 2120s humanity had developed a Near Speed of Light Drive, allowing faster travel between Earth and its colonies in the outer Sol System. In the 2130, a Gravity Fold drive was developed and a ship constructed under the supervision of Doctor William Weir. By 2140, this ship, the _Event Horizon_, was ready for its maiden voyage, set to fold space and journey to Proxima Centauri and back. The ship vanished as soon as the Fold drive was activated, only to reappear in orbit over Neptune seven years later. Weir would join the salvage operation to recover the _Event Horizon_, but after the crew of the _Lewis and Clark_ boarded, unexplainable and horrific events occurred, and only three members of the crew would survive in the detached command section while the drive section was pulled back into the fold in space, never to be seen again. While no record of what really happened could be found, the claims of the survivors were enough to shut down any attempt to recreate Weir's Fold drive. Decades later, using the proven NLS drives, humanity would journey past the Kuiper Belt, and breached the heliopause boundary into interstellar space, where they made first contact with the Gamilas Empire. Whatever happened between the ships of the United Nations Cosmo Navy and the Gamilas sparked a war that nearly eradicated the Earth’s biosphere and all life born of it. It was in 2185 that the United Nations received a message from an envoy of the Iskandar, claiming to bring hope and offering the designs for a Wave Motion Engine in order to journey across the dark space expanse and reach a location within the Tarantula Nebula to meet the Iskandar and obtain the device necessary to decontaminate the Earth's biosphere of the Gamilas assault. Each remaining major nation was given the designs, twelve ships to be constructed, and the first to be completed would be the ship sent to meet with the Iskandar while the rest were to be completed as a last ditch effort to save humanity. The Japanese vessel, the UNCN _Yamato_, was the first completed, built in the image of the famous battleship of the second World War. In 2189, the _Yamato_ launched into a one year round trip mission to the Great Magellanic Cloud and back, successfully claiming the biosphere restoration technology from the Iskandar and returning to Sol just in time to repair the Earth's ecosystem. This was the birth of the United Nation's Solar Federation, which would further refine their Wave Motion fleet and expand beyond the Sol System to colonized hundreds of worlds over the next century, including Reach, Sera, the Tau Ceti system, and the planet that would be known as Beacon.

During this period that would become known as the Great Expansion, humanity saw the effects of deep space and the Translight realm on the human genome as a series of mutations occurred within seemingly random groups of exploration and colony fleets, and expanded into a new sub-genome of humanity. Gifted with incredible spatial sensory direction and the ability to sense ebbs and flows of gravity, this new subset of humanity would change interstellar travel for centuries to come as their skills made translight travel more precise and less dangerous to chart. The Solar Federation would control five hundred systems throughout the reach of a hundred parsecs by the time they encountered what would be later realized to be a minor faction the Machine Empire, led by the Machine King Zess Vodar and the mysterious Helmatier, and the first Machine War broke out. The Helcastle forces began cutting a path through human territory, revealed to be converting the populations into more machine men for Vodar's army and making way toward the Earth. A last stand was held at the outskirts of Epsilon Eridani, between the Helcastle and the Solar Federation’s Wave Motion Fleet, led by the SFS _Karyu_ and the mysterious vessel known as the _Arcadia_. While the Wave Motion Fleet was decimated, the _Karyu_ was successful in firing the weapon known as Saint Elmo’s Fire to destroy the Helcastle and end the first Machine War with a Terran victory, if only barely. However, the cost was the entirety of the Wave Motion Fleet, including the _Karyu_, leaving a battered humanity with fragments of the technology that had given them a budding empire. Within a decade, even as humanity was struggling to recover from the first Machine War, numerous races would make their attempts to aid humanity in rebuilding, or attempt to take Earth and the humans living there for themselves. The first occupation was a faction of Machine Men led by the minor noble Count Mecha, who took over from a section of Europe and began treating the humans as livestock and hunting sport. Fortunately, his reign lasted only a matter of years before he was killed by a boy who had survived one of the earliest of his hunting raids. However, it gave way for the arrival of the Illumidas, themselves refugees from the Andromeda Galaxy, who managed to defeat what was left of the outer Sol colony fleets and occupy Earth for a period of ten years. A resistance worked to drive the Illumidas out, but it wasn’t until the intervention of the _Arcadia_ that the tides turned, and in 2334, a mysterious golden light swept through the Orion Spur and seemingly wiped the Illumidas from existence. Humanity was given its worlds back, the fragmented United Nations reorganized into the Unified Earth Governments, with the majority of the militaries combining into the United Nation Space Command, and within another ten years, supralight travel was possible again with the development of the Shaw-Fujikawa Translight drive in 2343. Contact between the inner colonies and Sol were reestablished, but the decades since the Machine War and the destruction of the Wave Motion Fleet had rendered a number of colonies lost to communication, Sera and Noua Țara Românească among them. Many of the outer worlds would be cut off from the rest of humanity for centuries, breeding resentment from a perceived abandonment by Earth, even if the truth was the exact opposite.

The next major encounter with another race would come in 2432, when a fleet of ships, numbering in the millions, was found entering the galaxy from the direction of Andromeda; the Mazon, who had been escaping an unknown force that had been decimating their home systems. Despite this, their leader, Queen Rafflesia, made gains toward infiltration of the United Nations, with plans to eliminate human occupation of the planet and take Earth for their own. Neither her purpose nor her quarrel with humanity were ever discovered, but over the course of a year, clandestine efforts by the crew of the _Arcadia_ to unveil the invasion would mobilize an apathetic humanity in time as the enigmatic Captain Harlock revealed Rafflesia to be a human impersonating the Mazon Queen, and forced peace talks with the refugee Mazon which ended in treaty and settlement rights to Venus being given to the flora based race. As a result, humanity gained a new and grateful ally, and the efforts of colonizing space would further boom as the population exploded and the colonies would expand again, stretching eight hundred worlds over two hundred light years by 2472.

However, tensions began to rise again between Earth and her colonies. These conflicts would come to a head in 2490, when a number of outer worlds declared intent of independence from what they claimed was an overbearing draconian shadow of what the Solar Federation had been. As a result, the UNSC and the Office of Naval Intelligence would revive the bio-augmentation experiments of the 1940s and the 2250s, resulting in the ORION program as insurgency broke out. While seemingly successful, many ORION augments either suffered long-term effects of the process, fell to insurrectionist sympathies, or went mad, and the program was shut down behind closed doors by 2506. It was in 2510 that ONI, following on a pre-war report, projected that the insurrection would only continue to escalate to incalculable level within twenty years if severe enough action on the scale of full-out militarization was not taken. At the same time, eighteen-year-old Catherine Halsey had run simulations and found the same conclusions. Even as her submission of her findings brought her to become the youngest recruit in ONI, Halsey's penchant for curiosity and pursuit of knowledge brought her across centuries old data regarding the Erskine Formula and Project REBIRTH. Within weeks, unbeknownst to anyone, Halsey not only cracked the formula, but also figured out the flaws of previous attempts to emulate it, and how to enhance the desired results further with her own process based in the advancements of technology since the 1940s. This was the birth of what would come to known as the SPARTAN project, and her early experiments with the Erskine Formula, though set aside in favor her own developments, would prove invaluable to the Spartan-III program. When humanity encountered the forces of the Covenant and was plunged into a horrific three decade war in 2525, Halsey's efforts proved to be the hope for mankind. Over the course of the war, the Spartans proved time and again the best one to one chance humanity had as they hurried to catch up to the technological superiority of the Covenant, until late July 2552, when the Covenant found and swarmed at Reach in the Epsilon Eridani system and decimated the planet after almost a month and a half long siege. This would ironically lead to the discovery by the UNSC of the Covenant's goals to find the Halo Array, as well as the horrible revelation of the Flood, and the chain of events that would lead to the Battle of the Ark. By this point, the Covenant had cut a destructive path through Earth’s colonies, which led many to believe that most of humanity had been killed by the time the Covenant fleet reached Earth in October of 2552. Events since the destruction of Halo Installation 04, also known as Alpha Halo, eventually triggered an uprising and schism in the Covenant as the falsehoods of the religion preached by the San'Shyuum were exposed and the Sangheili began rebelling against the hegemony they had served for eight generations in the midst of what would have been a final victory, turning and allying with the humans as further truths revealing that the Forerunners that the Covenant had worshipped as gods had in fact designated humanity as their inheritors. By March 2553, the Covenant had fractured, with various warlords trying their hand at taking control, and eventually failed, while humanity had at least one major new ally to eventually call on, and a chance to rebuild from the horrors of the Covenant and the Flood.

By 2571, however, the stability of the UEG was coming undone. The aftermath of the AI Reclamation had left the political, economical, and ideological climate in turmoil, and many of ONI’s carefully hidden secrets regarding it involvement in illegal and destabilizing efforts in the former Covenant races and within the outer colonies to warrant further tightening of military oversight of the Earth sphere were starting to come to light, as rumors of the truth behind the Spartan program had already been circulating for a decade and a half. Within two years, Admiral Serin Osman executed the Hades Protocol, also known less formally as Skeletons in the Closet, initiating a full black-box archive of all ONI records and the activation of specialized worm programs to sweep the data networks and wipe all traces of any information relating to ONI, what it had been involved in, and of what it had still been planning out. Included were all files on the original SPARTAN processes, Mjolnir armor data, and the location of the Concord Special Assembly Plant, as well as the designs of the Infinity-Class Super Carrier. By 2575, having wiped almost all traces of the department's activities and hidden the “Vault” in pieces across secure warehouse locations, Osman executed the last actions of the Hades protocol and destroyed the entire database and physical publicly known complexes in demolition explosions that were engineered to look like insurrectionist attacks.

During this time, the UEG was undergoing a reformation as the process of returning government power to civilian hands became complicated by disputes with the colonial regions and conflicts with the remaining Covenant splinter factions. But by 2580, a settlement was reached, and the UEG was reorganized into a new world and space republic of regions. On August 23, 2583, the Articles of Confederation were signed by representatives of the UEG and the inner colonial regions, formally marking the end of the Unified Earth Governments, and the birth of the Terran Confederation. It was hoped that by reforming the old UEG into a new entity, a new start could give way to the hopes of a golden age, with the greatest of their struggles behind them, and a growing circle of allies beside them.

Within forty-five years, the hard and painfully earned peace was shattered. Humanity was barely starting to rebuild what they had lost when on August 17, 2629, the TCS _Iason_, an exploratory vessel reaching out via the recently discovered jump points into the coreward regions of the Orion Spur, encountered an unknown race in the Tyr System, later discovered to be the Kilrathi. After a twenty minute wait with weapons disarmed and broadcasting first contacting hailing frequencies, the _Iason_ was fired on and eventually destroyed, starting a five year period of harassment from the Empire before war was declared, and the Battle of McAuliffe showed the Confederation just how much of a horrifying repeat of the Covenant they were in for. Having barely recovered to just over twice the surviving population following the Covenant War, the conflict dragged on into years, then into decades, and while humanity held their ground well enough, in late 2667, a false armistice was offered by the Kilrathi in effort to lull the Confederation into a false sense of security, and afford themselves time to complete construction of a new fleet of heavy-carrier class ships. By the end of 2668, the Confederation has disarmed itself enough that the Kilrathi fleet was able to drive its way through the outer colonies and into the Sol System itself. If not for the last minute arrival by the fleets of the Free Republic of the Landreich, and the heel-turn of Baron Jukaga nar Ki'ra, it would have been likely the Earth would have been sterilized by the attacking fleet. The bitter victory brought heavy losses in almost all fronts going into 2669, leading to several special operations projects of desperation. One of these, the _Behemoth_ dreadnought, attempted to create a refractive resonation superlaser capable of cracking and destabilizing the crust and mantle of a planet, but was destroyed by the Kilrathi while en route to the Kilrah system after sabotage and betrayal by Lieutenant Laurel “Cobra” Buckley, a former slave who had been conditioned with personality overlays and biochemical implants as a sleeper agent. The second project was a covert infiltration of the Kilrah system to gain tectonic data on Kilrah itself for the purpose of attuning the seismic resonation frequency of the experimental Temblor Bomb, a refinement of the hyper-destructive NOVA bomb into a seismic resonation weapon that could trigger devastating tectonic ruptures and shatter a planet through apocalyptic quakes. This second weapon of terrifying power became the lynchpin that turned the course of the war into an ending. A final strike was made by a quartette of experimental fighters with stealth drives into the heart of the Kilrathi Empire. The Crown Prince Thrakkath was shot down over the planet, the Temblor unleashed on a key-fault to trigger a chain reaction that would tear the planet open, destroying everything living on the surface, and decimating the orbiting fleet. With the imperial family eradicated in the destruction of Kilrah, power fell to the prince's retainer, who had come to realize what the lust for war had cost all those involved, and agreed to peace for the sake of the Kilrathi and the rest of the galaxy.

With the treaty of Torgo came another era of recovery, and of contact with the mysterious Chozo, who pressed for the Galactic Federation to induct humanity as a member species. Refusal came, and the reasons of Terra’s destructive history as justification, but these all proved folly as in 2701, the Promethium Machine Empire arrived from across the dark space span and dragged the galaxy into an already raging second Machine War. This time, the entire Orion Spur was pulled into the conflict, and while some fared better than others, the Machine War would be the end of the Spartan legacy as the Strategic Readiness Agency database containing all information on the augmentation process was ravaged by a highly advanced AI attack, wiping more than half the defense project archives and setting the Confederation back decades. As well, the legendary TCS _Infinity_ vanished during the war, as was also the fate of its sister ship, the TCS _Eternity_, though neither ship was ever confirmed destroyed. Perhaps the only thing that saved the galaxy was the unexpected and sudden withdrawal of the Empire just as they had prepared to destabilize Sol itself and destroy the Sol System in the resulting nova. Once more, Terra lay wounded, damaged, but still living and the last refuge for the surviving four and a half billion Terrans of the Spur. Once more, the Chozo spoke on humanity's behalf, and this time, with the Mantu joining that call, and the fact that they had repeatedly courted extinction on the galaxy’s behalf, the Federation extended its aid and offers of inclusion to the Terrans.

But as the next century would reveal, Sol's desperate state that had convinced the Federation of their worth and value became the crippling flaw that gave rise to a system of control over the rebuilding military forces of the Confederation. Second perhaps only to the Sangheili as a military power despite their losses, humanity nonetheless had more material resources than they had a population, and the nihilistic outlook many had gave way to apathy towards their inferior political power in the Galactic Federation Congress, and they would not be the last treated in this fashion. It was, perhaps poetically, the expectation of yet another interstellar conflict that in fact never came that gave humanity hope once again, and over the next century and a half, Terra experienced an explosion in optimism and population unlike any it had seen since the end of the Gamilas War, one perhaps aided by the various artificial gestation technologies and advancements in technology and science that seemed to boom into being almost overnight. By 2925, the four hundredth anniversary of the Covenant War’s onset, humanity had come to reach almost seven times the population that had survived that same horrifying conflict, and Terra was able to be inhabited in approximately two-thirds of the habitable surface regions, with reconstruction efforts still on going to restore the planet.

It was in 2913, however, that the first signs of an inevitable conflict came. While rumors and spacer stories of mysterious "space pirates" had been told since the end of the 2690s, after the Federation had been formally founded, a definitive proof of organized agressions was realized. After four years, and the cost of multiple Halsey class AIs, the languages of these pirates were compiled, and a name for their collective species was learned; the Kromus. The Federation Chairman of the time refuted any suggestion that the Kromus were anything more than vagrants and pirates, locking the Confederation into policing actions while the Galactic Federation Police concerned itself with internal regional matters. Not content to sit in such complacency, Admiral Delinda Spenceman, then Commander in Chief of the Confederation Armed Forces, ordered a covert study of all Kromus activity, and later authorized then Brigadier General Rodham Morris to commission a specialized augmented super soldier program in 2931, intended to revive the ideology and combat lethality of the now legendary Spartan Corps, all while also doubling efforts on new ships technologies such as Wave Motion powered engine drives and weapons. When Morris later succeeded Spenceman as CAFCIC in 2940, the ÆSIR project was still developing much of the new bioaugmentation and cybernetics technologies required to enhance a human soldier to the levels last recorded in the Machine War era Spartans, as well as new powered combat armor technologies to accompany the new process, now under the eyes of bioengineering and cybernetics expert Theodora Stark. Preparations were slow due to the secrecy of the project, since Spenceman had known, as did Morris as her successor, that Chairman Vog'l would never approve any large scale expansion of the Terran military. And then, in 2047, after warning the Federation for thirty-four years of the dangers presented and predicted of the enigmatic Kromus, it was indeed the Confederation that suffered the first major wound, as the years of piracy and harassment gave way to a surprise invasion of the Pilgrim colony of Beacon. The local defense force was decimated in the surprise assault, and the planet was lit aflame with a mass bombardment of muon plasma bombs, igniting the atmosphere itself and burning out the planetary biosphere until Beacon was a lifeless and charred rock. It was after the system was decimated that the Confederation finally convinced the Federation Congress that the Kromus rate far larger a threat than "migratory pirates", and a vote of war was made. The conflict was one that was expected to rage for decades, as the Kromus' origins could not be traced, and the source of their countless ships unknown. Two months after Beacon, another planet met what the Confederation Fleet came to call the 'Exterminus Protocol', and millions died before the Kromus were battered away. Even with the aid of the Sangheili, the numbers the Pirates were too vast for any hope of a clean and quick victory.

Two years into the war, the ÆSIR Project completed both the augmentation testing and the powered armor designs. New weapons had also been developed to work in synch with the new breed of augmented soldiers, and the team found their first unit for enhancements in a twelve-man unit made up of the best candidates that DAW could determine. Many of these soldiers had been part of a nearly disastrous rescue operation of four flag officers, including future Chief of the Fleet Naota Nagawa, plus then Fleet Captain Castor Dane, which had lost its original commanding officer during operations, yet was miraculously recovered by the quick assumption of command and reassessment of tactics by Second Lieutenant John Aran, who would become one of those first twelve ÆSIR super soldiers, and go on to lead many campaigns and strike operations as the war would rage on. Over the next ten years, the war would swing back and forth, and the Federation would throw token support even as the Terrans and their Sangheili allies fought against the brutal force of the Kromus with a vengeance only seen in them. It seemed the conflict might have a devastating turn when Lieutenant Aran was contacted by the young Chozo Maru, alerting the Confederation that the Kromus had tripped the long range defense net of the FS-176 system, and of the significance of Zebes. Within weeks after ConFleet HighCom was notified, a strike fleet raced to the system, met by a coordinated force of Sangheili ships as the combined force hammered its way to Zebes and made planetside with the intent to drive the Kromus out. First encountered on Zebes was the massive dragonoid lifeform later known by the name of "Ridley", who would soon be identified by Confed Intelligence as the commander of the Kromus forces. Joint operations by Confederation and Sangheili forces were able to drive the occupation by the Kromus out, aided by tactics information of Zebes provided by the Chozo Maru, who also fought alongside allied forces until he was injured in combat.

Eventually, Terran efforts to trace the source of the Kromus would reveal their origin in a series of star systems in the Large Magellanic Cloud, over a hundred and sixty thousand light years distance from the Orion Spur Region, and beyond the reach of any known Jump lines or the current slipspace translight drives. Old research was resumed on Sarcophagus, the hidden Forerunner Dyson Ring under joint possession of the Confederation and Sangheilios, to further advance slipdrive technologies to allow rapid travel to and from such distances. Over the course of five years, development and testing would culminate in the Relcaimer class slipdrive, capable of reaching transit velocities up to six hundred lights per hour. It was in 2956 that these drives were finalized, and the largest Confederation and Sangheili ships were refit with these new slipdrive technologies and newly developed stable tethering to allow multiple ships to follow in the highly charged slipspace wake of these command ships. It would be another two years before the final preparations on the task force to attack the Kromus strongholds in the Large Magellanic Cloud were completed. In that time, more planets burned under Kromus plasma, billions perished, and questions began to rise as to how no efforts to head off the devastation had been made by Vog'l's administration.

**[END RECORD. FURTHER DATA AVAILABLE IN FORTHCOMING CODEX UPDATE.]**


	9. Technologies of the Confederation

**VII-A. Technologies of the Confederation**

Terran technology in the modern era is a combination of self developed knowledge and insight learned from the study of other civilizations. It can also be argued that a predisposition toward the sciences of Quantum Wave Motion and Forerunner technology is in part to both the Forerunner genesongs placed within genetic memory of the species, and a racial genetic memory as well, being that Wave Motion was discovered by the far flung ancient humans in the first place. Humanity is also quite skilled at hybridizing technologies they are familiar with in order to make those they are still learning function beyond minimal needs.

Power Generation: As a whole, humanity understands the basis of fusion and fission to a degree few species do. Public sectors often use fusion energy for power grids, commercial and private civilian vessels, and the majority of the aging Confederation Fleet. However, lessons learned from the ancient Forerunner drives and power reactors on the research station Trevelyon have taught the fundamentals of Zero Point Energy, leading to the development of the experimental Quantum Axion Singularity Reactor, a drive that draws power from the radiated energy of a micro-singularity and generating over 160 petawatts an hour of power. While still only Quasi-Zero Point Energy, this has harnessed an energy level equal to that received by Terra from Sol itself.

Weaponry: While there is an ever evolving study and development of energy based particle and plasma weaponry, the Confederation has not forgotten the fundamentals of kinetic based weaponry. Magnetically accelerated weaponry has remained a staple of the naval fleets, with advanced power efficiency allowing for higher speed yields with smaller shells for more intense impact damage. Firing velocities of up to two percent the speed of light are not unheard of on the Chimera Class Battlewagon, with some of the larger ships, such as the Cerberus class Battlewagon, able to easily reach .03c speeds, and the .095c speeds as clocked from the S-MAC array mounted on the TCS _Concordia_. Point defense weapons tend to be of energy base type, such as pulse lasers and accelerated particle beams, while particle and plasma weaponry are fielded in ground operations by the Confederation military alongside traditional kinetic types. Semi-Powered Armor is a common sight in specialized units, with higher class infantry shielding reserved for ÆSIR Powered Combat Armors due to power requirements.

Material: Following the Covenant conflict, humanity began re-examining nano-lamination processes, and found a way to "compress" alloyed materials into a mass two-thirds the thickness at the same overall density as uncompressed. This lead to the development of what would be named "compressed durasteel", an alloy of titanium, tungsten, and bendazium that contributed to heat resistance and durability. Durasteel became a primary material in ship construction, as it was found to resist temperatures of 1500°c or higher before wear and tear began visually evident. Titanium is still a sought after mainstay for smaller civilian craft and military hardware such as aerospace superiority and ground based artillery transport, as well as the primary metallic material used in semi-powered and fully powered combat armor weapons platforms.

Energy Shielding: Current Confederation projected shielding technologies have been evolutions of the Phase Shielding development of the early 2600s. Originally able to withstand similar energy based and ballistics artillery to their 2550s Sangheili counterparts, the trade off of development for use by smaller vessels was a phase modulation frequency to help conserve energy usage. Such was later realized to be an exploitable weakness when Kilrathi anti-capital ship torpedoes were unveiled in the horrific First Battle of McAuliffe in August of 2634 that scanned and duplicated the very frequency needed to slip through the defensive grids. Further refinements and development since the war, and incorporation of technologies salvaged following the Second Machine War, have eliminated the flaw in the phase modulation, and the terminology has become a designation in regards to the functionality to phase sync with specific modulation frequencies to allow capital ship artillery emplacements to fire through the raised shielding fields while deflecting enemy firepower. Phase shielding is also very common on all military space superiority and combat craft, from fighters to gunships and assaults transports. Infantry level personal shielding and ground based shielding grids continue to use developments based on more Forerunner derived technology, being better suited for the much smaller scale.

Faster Than Light Travel: In the current era, Confed has a variety of methods for traversing interstellar space. The most common in the civilian travel and small corporate sectors is the Akwende Jump Drive, a modification of the Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Slipdrive that has focus in opening and facilitating trans-stellar travel via the gravitational intersection lines of compressed Slipspace known as Jump Points. Via jump points, travel between dozens to hundreds of light years can be instantaneous, with traditional slipspace usage allowing for rapid travel between major jump lines. While not as powerful as the dedicated slipdrives used by militaries such as Confed’s naval fleet or the Sangheili, the jump drive is far more economical for cost, space, and power usage. For larger corporations and government industries, the Fornax Slipdrive, developed based on Mantu translight engines in the tail end of the 2780s, is a common alternative, allowing for more direct destination travel, though overall travel time can be increased. These are a far more costly option, but larger corporations are able to weather the cost, as are government transportation lines. The Confederation fleets are primarily equipped with the upper grade Fornax Drives and Jump Drives, capable of reaching speeds up to 1100 light years a day, with a handful of capital ships carrying the more powerful Reclaimer-class Slip Drive, allowing transit speed upwards of over 666 light years an hour, or 16,000 light years a day. The experimental Quantum Wave Drive Array that was fielded inside the TCS _Concordia_ has been clocked up to speeds of at least 750 light years an hour, and this may possibly not even be the limit of the drive’s full capabilities.

Misc. Technologies: In addition to the above technologies explained in depth, the Terrans have made immense leaps in large scale gravity manipulation engines, advanced medical technologies such as cybernetic prosthetics and refined organ cloning, and superluminal communications, as exemplified by the communications hyperburst network now in place in the central regions of the Galactic Federation and within the Confederation itself. In addition to the Forerunner technologies that humanity has proven to hold key traits to unlocking, humanity has proven adapt at making progress with learning from the various Chozo technologies that also litter the galaxy. 


	10. ÆSIR, Heirs of the Titans

**VII-B. ÆSIR, Heirs of the Titans**

There have been multiple super-solider class projects over the course of a thousand years of human history. The earliest known success was Project Rebirth in the 1940s, but only one subject ever was produced from those experiments. In the 2250s, an attempt was made with cybernetics and an approximation of the Erskine Formula under the codename Aperion, but the results were abandoned after the process drove the subjects insane. It wasn’t until Doctor Catherine Halsey's Spartan-II process in the early 2500s that aims of recreating the legendary Project Rebirth were not only met, but exceeded. By 2560, the Spartan augmentation process was almost in mass production with the Spartan-IV generation. However, as each new generation of Spartan-IVs was processed, the augmentations were continuously simplified and streamlined for faster turnarounds on ready troops, which resulted in less effective enhancements, and more and more of the original process being lost. By the end of the second Machine War, the majority of the current generation Spartan-IVs had been killed in action, and the Strategic Readiness Agency databases was irretrievably damaged in a cyber-warfare attack by Machine Empire agents. Following the war, the SRA was dismantled after evidence of ethical and unacceptable compromises had been uncovered, as well as gross negligence, and replaced over the following ten years by the Department of Advanced Warfare.

**GEN I**

ÆSIR was developed after analysis of encounters with the as yet unknown Kromus Imperium revealed a similarity to the probe raids of the Kilrathi Empire during the early 2630s. A conflict was predicted to be on a scale exceeding the Covenant War if given the time, due to the sheer numbers of the Kromus combined with technology and weapons that were at least on par with the Covenant of the 2500s. To address these concerns, in 2934, CAFCIC Rodham Morris secretly tasked an R&D project through DAW to decipher what records they had in order to gain as much information on Spartan capabilities as possible, and commissioned Advanced Mechanics and Defense Concepts to develop a new augmentation process as well as an accompanying Powered Combat Armor. With most of their information consisting of medical data and combat records from the Machine War, as well as a pair of barely-functioning late generation Mjolnir suits that had been sitting on display in museum archives, AMDC worked with DAW to coordinate the birth of what was their best attempt to create a modern day super-soldier.

It was quickly recognized that without the augmentation processes and data of the actual Spartans, most of which had been lost in the near-decimation of the Confederation during the Machine War during the 2700s, the new augmentation process would have to start from formula. Fortunately, bioengineering technologies had advanced considerably since the days when Catherine Halsey first developed the Spartan Process, and medical technology had advanced to allow for nanotech reinforcement of skeletal structure without the invasive surgeries of the past. What DAW didn’t know was that the original augmenting process required pre-pubescent subjects to allow for the biological changes to be better accepted in order to reach the levels of the Spartan-II and III generations, nor did what data they had recovered reveal that the processes they were familiar with used in the Spartan-IVs had become less effective with each new generation as more and more of the process was streamlined. Even with these reduced capabilities as the mark DAW thought was their aim, it was none-the-less a highly ambitious undertaking.

Under the expertise of bio-mechanical and cybernetic engineering expert Doctor Theodora Stark, what was developed over the next decade and a half was a process that, using bioengineering for muscular, circulatory, and nervous system enhancement, compressed titanium nano-bonding for reinforcement of bone structure, and cybernetic implants for boosting the neuro-interface with the Powered Combat Armors these soldiers would be wearing and aiding in reaction speeds, would allow for a new category of battle ready soldier. While a major step above the best un-augmented soldier, close as they were to the Spartan-IVs, the new ÆSIR process was still unable to compare on level with the fully realized Spartan-IIs due to many missing key elements, but the risk of physical and mental damages was greatly reduced in turn. The assistance from a handful of lifemaker Huragok that reside on Trevelyan also helped refine the process once the first successful augmentations tests were accomplished. The increases achieved in optimal enhancement ranged in a one hundred and fifty to two hundred and twenty-five percent increase in physical abilities, cognitive reflexes and reaction speeds, and structural durability. Those that surpassed the two hundred percent threshold were classified as “Category 2" ÆSIR, akin to those of the Spartan-IIIs who displayed exceptional response to their augments.

As the project progressed, DAW began looking into new advances in AI to supplement the operating systems of the ÆSIR armor, as well as interfacing with the augmented soldiers using the armors to increase performance and tactical combat awareness. The new AIs were classed “Macro Intelligence” as they were an in-between of the traditional “dumb" type AIs and the near human “Smart” types AIs; able to be more creative as an intelligence, but still constrained by limits of their program and hard memory. Definite personality traits also began to emerge in the new AIs, typically due to interaction with their paired ÆSIR trooper. Due to the lower cost of a Macro AI compared to a Smart AI, and the amount of bonding resulting from interactions, many of the first generation Macros were given permanent assignment to their organic partners, even following post-war discharge from service.

Armor development on the ÆSIR PCA was completed in 2749, two years into the Kromus War. It was just in time to complement the first augmented soldiers after the initial successful volunteer test subject showed no signs of degeneration or rejection. With the process ready, the ÆSIR mk1 armor was prepared for the first ready combat unit, and was designed to success for increasing the physical and reaction abilities of an ÆSIR soldier another two hundred percent. Each armor was outfitted with maneuvering thrusters, fliplock vibrational blade in either left or right gauntlet mount for close quarters combat, mag-lock mountings on the backpack unit for firearms carry and special mission loadouts, and an advanced sensor package including thermal, electro-magnetic and ultraviolet vision modes, as well as a personal shielding unit which tested up to eight hundred kilojoules of burst damage before overload. The later mk2, first assigned in action to Captain John Aran's Spartans(named for the legendary soldiers that ÆSIR was trying to emulate), increased energy based damage absorption while cutting down power drain and recharge times, as well as enhanced physical factors an extra twenty-five percent additional to the two hundred percent increase of the mk1, for a total two hundred and twenty-five percent increase of strength, mobility, and reactionary speed.

The ÆSIR armor itself was designed modular for multiple roles, and typically required only specific components to be swapped out depending on mission detail. The base armor is constructed of titanium armor plates over a complex network of myomer musculature structure, reactive force-multiplying circuits, and the hardware suites, with a hydrostatic gel layer sandwiched in between the external powered armor itself and the interior padding of each suit. A neuro-sensor titanium nanocomposite bodysuit is the interface layer every ÆSIR soldier wears in place of the invasive neural implants of the past. The helmet itself serves not only as protection and sensory gear, but also as a direct interface with each ÆSIR soldiers’ paired Macro-AI assistant. As standard neural implants were phased out of use save for specific military intelligence roles, the expanded memory capacities of the combat field helmet became invaluable for operating systems interface and AI occupancy.

Total numbers during the Kromus War were lower than optimally projected, due to resources being constantly reallocated where needed in the conflict. Since each enhanced soldier required a rehab and adjustment period of one to two weeks after the augmentation processing was completed, plus four weeks armor training, following the initial twelve man squad, augmentations were preformed in groups of six to seven subjects. By the time of the Siege of Krom, a total of three hundred ÆSIR troops had been enhanced, including Doctor Stark’s younger daughter, though only about fifty of them survived the war. Most of the casualties occurred during the brutal theater that was Krom, and a number of those were at the hands of the Kromus Commander, Ridley. Those that survived and took discharge reintegrated into civilian life with focuses in security sectors, colonial leadership, or instructional capacities at various military academies, while those who remained in service typically garnered command positions. ÆSIR itself was forced into dormancy by the Federation Congress with a public justification of requiring financial resources elsewhere, but the reality was much more clear; many Federation politicians wanted to keep Terra stifled and under a leash instead of reviving the programs and technologies that would allow the Terrans to be a singular force in the galaxy again.

As such, even with ÆSIR officially discontinued, the Confederation continued testing and advancement of the program behind closed doors, as all predictions indicated that the Kromus were hardly finished with their assault on the galaxy. The second generation is already in progress, and with the return of an organized Kromus force following Zebes, the foresight to secretly continue ÆSIR research is seen by military upper command as the wisest course. It’s just a matter of if the new generation will be ready in time should projections be revealed to underestimate the coming threat.


	11. The Kromus, Scourge of the Galaxies

****   


**VIII. The Kromus, Scourge of the Galaxies**

A violent collective species that holds origins in a common ancestor from the tectonic nightmare that is Krom, a planet that orbits barely within the habitable range of its star in the Dragon's Head Nebula of the Large Magellanic Cloud, theory suggests that the Kromus somehow managed to discover directed faster-than-light interstellar travel over fifteen hundred years ago, as there is evidence for Kromus use of local jump points even further back due to subgroup homeworlds in systems hundreds of parsecs separated. It is theorized that their sudden surge in capability for interstellar technologies could have occurred as a result of a Chozo research team that they slaughtered and salvaged the ship thereof, as the Kromus have taken to favoring Chozo technologies, as well as Forerunner design seeds. This rapid jump from a tier 3 space age civilization barely capable of using the natural jump lines to tier 2 with directed higher-spatial travel resulted in a violent upheaval. Tribal factions began turning their new might on each other, then against the other species subgroups, and likely would led to a sectors wide genocidal holocaust if not for the arrival of the dragonoid Ridley. As the Kromus are compelled on a biological level to follow a physically and psychologically strong leader, when the regenerator dragonoid defeated and kill most of the native faction leaders, it forced the tribes to recognize Ridley as a superior leader. Under his leadership, the Kromus set out of the Dragon's Head Nebula and discovered a planet that was rife with Forerunner technologies, including design seeds that allowed the Kromus to not only upgrade and expand their own existing fleets, but also allowed the construction of a massive dreadnought vessel that Ridley would claim as his own flagship.

While unverified reports of pirates that resemble the Kromus have plagued the Galactic Federation since its formal founding in 2681, it was in 2913 that confirmed assaults from the Kromus were recorded. Even then, the Galactic Federation refused to allow a vote for declaration of war, citing that "random piracy" did not warrant such measures. It wasn’t until the Confederation colony world of Beacon was bombarded into utter lifelessness by Kromus forces that full scale war was declared by Confed in 2947. By that point, the Kromus had been building up their fleets for well over two hundred years, unified under Ridley and the High Command council under his guide. While initially not seeming to be more powerful than the former Covenant once was, the Kromus Imperium was still a force that proved it was to be feared, and its devastating true power was revealed once the dreadnought that was Ridley's flagship unveiled itself in the devastating Battle of McAuliffe and decimated the defensive forces with the aptly named Oblivion Cannon, then proceeded to bombard the planet until the biosphere was burned out beyond any semblance of supporting life. The Cunning Death would go on in the war to be one of the most feared ships of the time, letting the Confederation fleet breathe easy only when it vanished after the Siege of Krom in 2959 and was assumed finally destroyed.

There were previously two main components of the upper leadership in the Kromus Imperium, though one only had true power in the event that the other was missing or unavailable to make wide scale decisions. The first is the High Command council, made up of the smarter and more ambitious examples of the Kromus factions, who handle the general command and direction of the species as an engine of war. The other component was, until the Siege of Krom in 2959, Ridley himself, reigning over the Kromus by authority of his size and strength, his massacre of the previous tribal leaders, and his frightening intellect. Since his reported death, it is assumed that High Command, or faction warlords, reign now.

The Kromus themselves are an oddly evolved collective race. They seem to be a combination of reptilian, insectoid, and crustacean racial traits and biological makeup, and are divided along developmental lines influenced by the planets claimed by the different tribal clans as ‘home worlds'. Despite the common genetic ancestor held by the various subgroups, however, each one shows evidence of a further reaching habitation of their source planets and divergence of evolution far more than a mere two to three millennia, something that baffles Federation scientists. These divergent evolutions are also accelerated by an acquired habit of artificially altering themselves with appropriated biotech to create new physical traits, which each tribe-clan claimed were the superior course for the overspecies.

The first racial genotype, known as Kromun for their formerly maintain homeworld of Krom, are built for combat and brute command, as their natural and artificially induced evolutions show. Towering over nine feet tall and broad built, their arms end with elongated pincers that open up to reveal organic biolaser nodes for attack. Their heads are covered in exoskeletal plates with two sets of glowing yellow-red eyes inside of withdrawn sockets, while a pair of large outer mandible jaws frame the smaller inner sets of insectoid mandibles that mark their mouths. Kromun are also digitigrade bipedals and have been observed to be capable of sustained running speeds up to fifty-seven kilometers an hour.

The second most prolific genotype, and the most well known offshoot, is the Urtraghans, called such for the planet Urtraghus they claimed as their tribal homeworld. They possess six eyes instead of the usual four, with a row of three on either side of their sloping, fishlike heads. Their mouths are upturned and lined with long, needle-like teeth, as are the lower mandibles, giving the Urtraghians a superficial resemblance to the Sangheili. Unlike the Kromun genotype, Urtraghians have hands and talons instead of the usual pincer claws, allowing them greater use and manipulation of firearms and tools.

The third known genotype, the Qymor, exhibit more reptilian traits, with three-fingered claws, similar to the Urtrahgan Kromus, digitigrade legs and raptor-like feet. Their angular heads have sharp-toothed, snarling jaws, a pair of swept-back tendrils and a singular pair of yellow eyes that seemed to be perpetually ablaze. Additionally, the Qymor typically have grey-purple flesh, with green, bristle-lined plating partially covering their bodies.

Fourth of the known genotypes is the Fro’my’xin. They do show the typical common physical traits with the Kromun subspecies, such as the crustacean claws, digitigrade leg structure, and insect-like outer mandibles, but with a more humanoid head, single set of eyes, and blade-like structures growing from their shoulders similar to the Qymor subgroup. Curiously, the exoskeleton of the Fro'my'xin do not completely cover the body, on occasion leaving back tissue exposed in several areas as well as what appears to be a beating heart at times.

The last observed tribal genotype is the Xybysian. Retaining the pincer claws of the Kromun subspecies, the Xybysian are more crustacean in appearance, with digitigrade legs and heavy shell plating over their bodies. Most are a blue to blueish-black coloration, and like the Qymor and Fro'my'xin, the Xybysians have a single pair of glowing yellow eyes. Their mouths resemble a rostrum beak similar to cephalopods, while raised spine-quills run down their back plates. Unlike the Kromun subspecies, however, the beam emitters stored in their pincers are not organic and require external power sources due to being cybernetic implants. It is unclear as the nature of this strange divergence in offensive natural weaponry, as the Fro'my'xin also lack the organic biobeam emmiter nodes.

A common biological trait between all five tribal species is self-insemination, as there is no known biological gender separation of a male or female in the Kromus. Whether this is due to their evolution or a result of thousands of years of self-alteration is unknown, but a single birthing Kromus is capable of laying up to two dozen eggs in a single birth cycle, which tend to run every six to eight Krom based months, or about twice a Terran orbital cycle. In addition, maturation rate of the Kromus is perhaps even faster than the Unggoy, aging to physical lethal maturity within three to five standard years. As a result, it is likely such birthing rates are the results of Kromus genetic experimentation to increase their numbers once they had begun spreading out in their home galaxy. The ratio of birthing capable Kromus to those that do not bear eggs seems proportionate to local population needs, which would normally seem to keep the species from totally overwhelming the supporting local resources, but has seemed to grow to near infestation levels in the interstellar scale. At current projections, as of 2976, there is a calculated lower estimate of three to five trillion Kromus of the five primary subgroups between those hiding in the Sol-Daiban Galaxy and the Large Magellanic Cloud.

**[END RECORD. FURTHER DATA AVAILABLE IN FORTHCOMING CODEX UPDATES.]**


	12. Technologies of the Kromus Pirates

**VIII-A: Technologies of the Kromus Pirates**

Particle Ray Shielding: While not quite as durable as the Phase Shields used by the Confederation, the shielding developed by the Kromus over their centuries of conquering their home galaxy does still offer substantial protection in fleet combat. It is primarily a solid defense against energy based weapons, while offering half as much defensive power against kinetic ballistics weapons such as the Magnetic Accelerated Cannons of the Confederation. 

Quantum Filament Shielding Grid:

Denzium Hull Armor: The Kromus have not yet perfected the alloy process as well as the more developed systems in the Sol-Daiban galaxy, they still have a crude method with which they can produce their own durasteel.

Fusion Reactors:

Pulse Lasers:

Hardlight Cannons:

Mass Drivers:

Phase Torpedoes: An older technology, developed from recovered misfire torpedoes of the Terran-Kilrathi War era, but one that is not yet obsolete. With some time to observe the shielding types and strengths of the prevalent militaries of the Sol-Daiban Galaxy, the Kromus have been able to progress the phase torpedo technology to be viable and relevant as a ballistics payload against modern defensive shielding. By scanning the modulation frequency of the target capital ship's phase shielding, the phase torpedo is able to penetrate and make impact against the hull armor. The downside is that, like in the height of war of the mid-2600s, it takes up to 30 seconds to scan and prepare the shielding counter frequency, leaving a fighter or bombing craft highly vulnerable while attaining scan and lock. The rewards can be high if successful in attack, as the Pirates are known for loading nuclear payloads into their torpedoes.

Accelerated Particle Energy Cannon: The most powerful single weapon within the Kromus' regular fleet arsenal, reverse engineered from what many assume to be salvaged Forerunner technologies. While not as powerful as the current Sangheili Energy Projectors, perhaps more comparable to the Energy Projectors of the 2550s’ Covenant, a Kromus APEC still is a fearsome fleet weapon, capable of tearing through smaller Confederation vessels when maintained at maximum output. In the fractured cohesion of the Kromus since the end of the War, however, many APEC units have fallen in disrepair and cannot maintain their maximum firepower any longer, requiring either longer powering times to accomplish the same damage, or multiple lesser firings which can still fail to destroy their target.

The Oblivion Cannon: A weapon developed from study of a salvageable, but ultimately impossible to restore, ancient Chozo battle ship, and Forerunner design seeds discovered in their home dwarf galaxy, the Kromus, under Ridley’s leadership and the guidance of a secret third party benefactor, constructed what is likely one of the most powerful weapons of the modern galaxy. No ship less than the six and a half kilometer long super-dreadnought known as the Cunning Death could house and power this destructive weapon. The Oblivion Cannon was at one time capable of destroying a Confederation heavy carrier and any close quarter escorts in a single shot, but the time it took to charge the Oblivion Cannon to that level of destructive power made it that the weapon could be used perhaps once during a battle if not fired in the opening action, leaving the super-dreadnought it was constructed into to depend on lesser armaments such as the APECs and heavy hardlight cannons as primary defense and offensive weaponry. In terms of raw power, the force of the fully charged Oblivion Cannon is equal to 36 teratons of explosive kinetic energy.


	13. The Chozo, a Study and History of the Precursors

** **

**IX. The Chozo, a Study and History of the Precursors**

Of the precursor races known to have reigned in the Sol-Daiban galaxy, the most mysterious is perhaps the Chozo. Few relics remain of their time in the Sol-Daiban Galaxy, and most are in peculiar caches on specific planets, when they can be found at all. Some researchers theorize that the Chozo in fact predate even the Forerunners, and may possibly not even be native to Sol-Daiban at all. The truth, surprisingly, is exactly that.

The Chozo Ancients in fact left their home galaxy hundreds of thousands of years ago, what is now called GN-z11, fleeing from an entity which has been forgotten by time. Under the edicts of what they called the Mantle of Guidance, a responsibility given by their higher creator to protect and guide less developed races in the efforts of evolution and the ideals of peace, they slowly made their way toward what would eventually be known as the Sol-Daiban Galaxy. As the Ancients traversed the vastness of space, they left traces of their technology for species they encountered to one day learn from and evolve themselves, even as the Ancients themselves, as a warrior culture, engaged in efforts to drive back various other-dimensional beings that were assaulting the cosmos. As a result, the course that could have taken their hyper-advanced technologies a matter of decades stretched to centuries. By the time the Ancient seed ships carrying so many refugees of their race reached the regions of Sol-Daiban, Andromeda, and the Triangulum Galaxy, they detected the release of an odd energy form, which was in fact the test firing of the Halo Array. This caused the world ship fleet to take position in what they would later name the Ym'k'ru Dwarf Galaxy, some 420,000 light-years outside the primary galaxy, as they waited to see what the strange energy was. Once the directed burst struck into the one of the closer orbiting dwarf galaxies, the Ancients were horrified as they would soon learn the nature of that energy's intention; sterilizing entire regions of space of all life. Within a few years, a similar, but galactic spanning, pulse engulfed the galaxy, sparing only the orbiting dwarf galaxies that lay outside a 225,000 light-year radial range. It was approximately one hundred years following this that the Ancients continued at last into the Sol-Daiban Galaxy and found a region devoid of the life they had expected to find. Further explorations revealed small pockets of life had survived the sterilizing pulse, and clearly with a design in mind.

After some years, the Ancients encountered the scattered remnants of an advanced race self-named the Forerunners. It was believed that the Forerunners were a sibling race seeded by the same lower creators that the Ancients had come to understand as those who seeded the origins of their own species. The Ancients offered what help they could extend in the Forerunners’ re-seeding endeavor of the galaxy, then watched as the tiny remnant of the once vast Forerunner Ecumene departed into self-exile, with a warning to beware the vengeance of the Precursors. With these warnings in mind, the Ancients began searching for a planet in the galaxy to settle as the center of their own renewed empire. Entering into the regions of the Outer Core Belt, the Ancients chose a young planet second from the star known in later millennia as FS-176, a planet they would name Zebes. The planet was less than two billion years old, and while developing within the habitable region of the system, required a teraforming acceleration to create the lush environment the Chozo Ancients knew best. Once the planet had been acclimated, the Ancients would make planetside and begin construction of the what would be the capitol of the new Chozo Expanse, known as Chozodia. Within years, they expanded out to the other habitable planets of the system, then returning into the main stretch of the Sagittarius Arm and making their course through the galaxy in effort to continue their efforts to uplift and guide the regressed races of the galaxy.

As millennia passed by, the Chozo Ancients continued to watch for the horrors of the Void, and carefully observed the progress of the younger races of the galaxy. However, the tens of thousands of years began to wear on the species, and a divide began to form. This divide brought about a split in the ideologies of the Chozo, with one side favoring a more militaristic reign over the galaxy in preparation the foreseen Darkness that was coming, and the other keeping hold of the ideals of the peaceful warrior, who sought only to end battles, not start them. By 18,500 BCE, these debates had escalated into an armed conflict that became known as the Great Schism, which engulfed much of the galaxy. The faction that favored to follow the path once traveled by the Forerunners, that is, to dominate and bring all the galaxy to heel under the Chozo, found itself beaten, with the surviving fleets banished from the galaxy in punishment, as the victors could not bring themselves execute their own brethren despite the destruction they had wrought not just to the Chozo, but to the galaxy as well. Over half their numbers had been lost in the war, and a third of the survivors would be cast out. The remaining Nest would come to call themselves the Brood, and the aftermath of the Schism was merely the beginning of the end.

**[END RECORD. FURTHER DATA AVAILABLE IN FORTHCOMING CODEX.]**


	14. Biology, Dimorphism, and the Breeds

**IX-A. Biology, Dimorphism, and the Breeds**

Chozo physiology is often noted as being unique and a curiosity. Their muscular structure is comparable to the Sangheili in that they are capable of immense feats of strength despite an average height of seven to eight feet. Part of this may be attributed to the hyper-dense hollow bone structure that gives the Chozo immense physical abilities at lower weight ratios, as well as their ancestral wings that allowed self-powered flight. The Chozo nervous system is highly reinforced and centralized in several clustered bundles. This clustering of nerve centers allows for higher pain tolerances and resistance to energy base stun weaponry. In addition, Chozo have two hearts to pump blood through their circulatory system. This increases their endurance capabilities as well as accelerates metabolic processing and aids in increased healing and regenerative properties. In the case of failure of one heart, the other can handle the increased work load, though it is obviously at a reduced capacity. As the older Chozo reach their millennial age points, failure of at least one heart becomes more likely.

As an avian species, Chozo reproduced via egg hatching. A typical clutch consisted of four to five eggs at one time during the height of the Brood’s era. Size and coloration could vary, especially between the various breeds and colony Nests. There was a point in time when a full clutch could survive to hatching. However as time went on following the Great Schism, stillborn and even barren eggs became increasingly frequent, until the species entered a period when viable births happened decades apart, with the last birth occurring in 2723 after a century of still births and barren clutches. By 2976, all the Chozo save the tiercel Maru are sterile.

Contrary to most assumptions regarding an avian species, Chozo beaks are soft tissue toward the joining point with their faces that gradually becomes harder into the bonelike tip. This development in their evolution is what allows Chozo to form facial expression and emote, as well as vocal use of other species’ spoken languages. Their own language, Chozia, is expressed in what many species might call ‘bird song', but is infinitely more complex. Each key shift in a song note changes meaning and structure of what is being said, with any variance meaning dozens of different words stringing together. It is possible to transliterate both Chozia and the song language of the Ancients into spoken vocalizations that represent what the Chozo understand the meaning of a song word to be, which can be used by what few scholars of the Orion Spur who have dedicated their research to the Chozo to translate the myriad of ruins and hieroglyphs that litter the galaxy.

In regards to bio-gender dimorphism, male Chozo, known as tiercels, are generally broader built, but with flatter breastbones in their chest structure and wider shoulder builds. Their plumage tends to be more colorful than pronounced in size, but can be fluffed up in anger, or in display. Female Chozo, known as formels, tend to be slimmer built, with more pronounced breastbone structure, narrow shoulders, larger plumage, but dulled or darker colors. Hip structure is similar to human females, in that they are more pronounced to facilitate the laying of eggs. While muscle and fat deposits in the chest area may be similar to humans, it is skeletal frame and muscle mass that gives any impression of breasts, not actual mammary organs.

Most Chozo hold breed traits in commonality with the terrestrial accipiter raptor family, resembling eagles, goshawks, and falcons. Different Nests hold variations, and some types of corruptive mutations had proven to breed into any offspring. There are some of the Tallon IV Nat’ra Nest who resemble the terrestrial vulture, considered an environmental mutation due to the presence of an odd energy that has rooted into the planet. Shaded Whisper, the infamous bioengineer who created the Mother Brain, greatly resembles a raven or a crow rather than a raptor breed, despite claims of having come from the M'k'na nest of Galta Tau where the primary breed type resemble the Terran parakeet.

Common colors of the Brood era Chozo are browns, beiges, or dull orange colorations, with brighter colors as patterns being individual markings, which is likely due to the advanced age of the vast majority of the species. Occasionally, the brighter and more vibrant colors associated with the Ancients are observed, such as Maru's burnished yellow coat with patterns of red and orange, or sometimes the metallic and monochrome tones, such as the gray base coat and silver patterns of Gray Voice. Shaded Whisper is an oddity with primarily black feathers tipped with dark red, appearing as if they had been dipped in blood, and it is not yet known exactly what her true lineage genome is.


	15. Technologies of the Chozo

**IX-B. Technologies of the Chozo**

_Hy'ka-ri/Flux Drive_ – The translight engine drive used by the Chozo that allows access to the mysterious supra-light hyper-dimensional realm known as the quantum slipstream. Speed maximums are determined by the mark designation with a base of 250 parsecs a day travel rate for a mark 0, and a formula of pi to the power of the mark designation as the maximum speed rate of the drive for each increase of model. The more powerful the drive, the larger and more complex the array needed to achieve the higher speeds. Outside of the various design specs and required engine sizes that differentiate the variable levels of drive capability, the one thing all Flux drives must have to access the slipstream is an aetherite crystal array. While entry and exit from the Slipstream are visually more subtle to witness from outside the traversing ship as opposed to Slipspace, there is a particular surge of tachyon category muon and boson particles that is unmistakable for those that know what they're looking for.  
  
_M'ru-ma'ri/Change Sphere_ – Also loosely translatable as “morph ball". The Change Sphere is a Chozo relic that allowed ancient Chozo warriors to transform their shape into a round sphere. It was primarily a method of meditation for young warriors in training, to help develop the extra-sensory abilities of the Chozo race for battlefield observation, as the Chozo “soul" is projected as an astral force and able to move about a local area. The particular lesson in the Change Sphere meditation is to achieve a mental state in relinquishing the concept of physical self.

_I'em-cy/Quantum Field Converter_ – A unique technology that only the Chozo ever seemed to have perfected on any scale, the Quantum Field Converter is an energy-matter conversion technology that allows surrounding ambient matter to be converted into energy, and reassembled into a new form again. Typically this is done on a small scale, such as the micro-missile function in a Chozo Powered Suit, or adding elements to a pre-existing material. Most QFC units are able to store chemical data for previously scanned minerals and matter to replicate and combine in later uses. Biological organic matter is unable to be stored and recreated as are certain ores and crystalline minerals, such as Afloraltite and Aetherite, due their inherent high energy nature.

_Arti'li-ga/Artificial Intelligence_ – An artificial intelligence of Chozo make, ranging from the level of operation routines and processing protocols to the hyper-advanced biomechanical entity known as the Mother Brain. While the true autonomy of Chozo Arti'li-ga can vary from little more than an operating system to the full self-aware and sapient nature suspected of the Mother Brain, most fall into the realm of what the modern Orion Spur raced consider the “dumb class AI", or the Macro-Intelligence. The techniques used to create the Mother Brain were simplified and passed on to the Galactic Federation to facilitate the creation of the Aurora Unit AI constructs.

_Ma’kr-ah/War Armor_ – The Ancients were known for not only their understanding of quantum sciences, but also their combat armor technologies. The most common of these favored a mixed ranged and melee combat function, known as the _V'kra-mi_ style, or “Distant striking talons". One arm would be mounted with a ranged projector, typically equipped with variable energy beams and some kind of kinetic ballistic that is loaded via energy-matter converter units, and the other arm would be free to hold a weapon, such as a resonance spear or a catalyst blade.

**[END RECORD. FURTHER DATA AVAILABLE IN FORTHCOMING CODEX.]**


	16. Samus Aran, Daughter of Two Worlds

  
Art by [Lucas Ferreira](https://twitter.com/Carneiro_RPG)

**X. Samus Aran, Daughter of Two Worlds**

Name: Samus Aran/Varia  
Species: Human-Chozo Hybrid  
Age: 18(by the end of Zero Mission)  
Height: 174 centimeters  
Mass: 57 kilograms(1g, true weight is 77.5 kg)  
Eyes: Blue-Green  
Hair: Blonde

Psychological Profile: As the daughter of a pair of ÆSIR veterans, Samus already had some influences toward the life of a soldier from the moment she was born. Not more than two months old when her mother placed her into the care of her grandmother for the remaining duration of the Kromus War, the young Aran would not see her parents until she was over a year old, after John and Virginia Aran had taken part in the horrific Siege of Krom. This lack of early presence by both her parents was a concern, though the reasons were definable as necessary. Once reunited with her parents, Samus was given what most could consider a happy childhood.

The family moved to mining outpost colony K-2L when her father accepted a position as chief of security and de facto head of operations for the Afloraltite mines, and Samus was able to interact on a daily basis with other children who had grown up on the colony. She also had exposure to a number of non-Terran individuals who came to trade with the mining colony, including a number of Chozo whom her father was familiar with. It is up to this point that one could consider Samus to have be experiencing a solid healthy lifestyle, with few things that could damage her mental state.

This all changed on her third birthday, when the colony was attacked by one of the largest Kromus factions, and everyone on the outpost, save Samus, was slaughtered. Due to its remote location in the region between the Sagittarius and Centaurus Arms, help from the Federation was unable to respond in time, and it was almost a day later that the Chozo returned to the colony to find the smoldering ruins, and the lone three-year-old girl who had survived everything. Taken in by the tiercel Maru, personal friend of her father's, the trauma of what she endured would not reveal itself until years later as Samus became plagued by horrifying nightmares of the massacre, and the glowing eyes of the ‘demon’ that had killed her parents. While her damaged mind did what it could by repressing her memories of K-2L, Samus would still developed severe anger issues and anxiety when forced to think about the colony. Later assessments would diagnose her with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Intermittent Explosive Disorder, depression, and severe anxiety.

Physical Profile: Samus is a young woman eighteen years of age as of the Invasion of Zebes, with a mostly muscular build, broad shoulders and a thick waist. Her face contrasts her physical build with softer features, wide blue-green eyes, and round cheeks that still have some baby fat. There is also a scar that runs over her left eye that she's had since the massacre of K-2L. Her blonde hair is typically tied back in a ponytail with a red ribbon while her face is framed with several thick strands of hair. Typically, she has a patch of soft blonde-white feathers that grow interspersed with the wisp hairs on the back of her neck.

Augmentation Data: Samus was enhanced at a very young age over the course of three years via genetic infusion of DNA and genome material donated by her adopted father, Maru. While the intention was to allow Samus increased survival and physical adaptability, the young age from which her genetic treatments began and set in increased not only her survival factors, but fundamentally altered her genetic structure to the point that Samus is essentially a full hybrid of half-Chozo genotype. Her skeletal structure has slowly changed from solid type to hyper-dense hollow latticed bones, similar to the Chozo, while her muscle density increased as well by opening up stronger fiber ratios and increasing her physical strength well above the norm for her size and physical stature. Her physical strength capacity has risen to a factor of five and a half times that of a human female of her body mass in Olympian training state, perception, reaction and reflex speeds are five times that of an unaugmented human, and she has a paced running speed of 35 miles an hour, with a minute sustained sprint of 55 to 60 miles an hour, while her jumping capability has reached about thirteen feet for a full strength vertical jump, and a twenty-five feet horizontal leap within gravitational conditions similar to Terra. Her body also heals at a higher rate than normal humans, and the increase in her metabolic rate makes Samus resistant to many toxins and poisons, as well as the effects of alcohol, making it very difficult for her to get inebriated. In addition to the physical abilities, Samus has inherited a minor form of the rare Chozo precognitive “Distant Sight" gift, one that gives her a momentary “sense" of danger just before something might strike her. It’s not a perfect internal warning, as even if she senses something, Samus still can’t perfectly react to every attack that comes at her.


	17. The Chozo Powered Suit

**X-A. The Chozo Powered Suit**

Height: 190 centimeters  
Mass: 90Kg

Detail Data: Based on the war armors of the Ancient Chozo warriors, the Powered Suit was none-the-less designed with an emphasis on defense of the user and mobility. While constructed within the Tourian foundries by the Mother Brain, the suit was designed by Samus' adopted father, Maru, as a defensive weapons platform to aid in Samus' desire to prevent the tragedy that befell her from happening to others. In functionary design, the Powered Suit is able to assimilate new suit features and weapons via specially designed modules, as well as incorporating foreign technologies.

  
_Offensive systems_

Armaments: The Powered Suit comes equipped with an arm cannon capable of a variable beam system. This variable beam system is by default equipped with a Chozo power beam, and includes an overcharge feature to increase beam damage and effect. The power beam is a Chozo designed accelerated energy pulse weapon with a range of about seventy to one hundred meters, and has a standard burst output of 150 kilojoules, equal to a Type-54 plasma pistol single shot, causing second to third degree burns to unshielded organic matter, vapor evaporating impacted fluids, and is able to be increased five times the normal impact power when fully overcharged via the charge beam feature. Against energy shielded targets, the power beam would take approximately six to eight uncharged bursts to collapse personal shields equivalent to a Sangheili combat harness defense grid, while a single fully overcharged burst would likely overwhelm said shields from sheer damage.

The micro-missile ballistics system is able to pre-generate and fire up to five missiles in rapid succession before requiring a conscious focus and cycling period lasting five seconds, know as the Concentration Cycle. This cycle requires full focus and can not be used during active firing of the energy beam. A standard missile concussive ballistic has an explosive power equal to an anti-personal rocket. 

For the possibility of melee or hand to hand combat, the underlying nanocrystal musculature structure is capable of maintaining the user's base physical strength and reaction movements with little to no hindrance in translation to the suit's own movements. This allows the user to apply their full force of strength in any close quarters attack and the mobile freedom to move at full running and sprinting speeds, in addition to increased reaction movements of the already augmented user, despite the mass and material of the armor. While not actually increasing strength factors, the suit does allow for greater maintained application of the base level strength, in addition to the armor materials density. Endurance and stamina is also increased by the divide of physical workload taken on by the powered suit itself, allowing the user far more physical activity before the effects of fatigue set in.

  
_Defensive Systems_

Defenses include a refreshing quantum filament shielding barrier that protects the suit from physical and particle energy weapons, and able to withstand up to a charged plasma burst, or about 1000 kilojoules energy impact, as damage before being overwhelmed. The shielding grid requires up to ten seconds to fully refresh and restore from overload conditions, but under normal conditions, shielding is able to recharge after three seconds of non-damage, taking another three to fully restore. The physical armor can take some punishment, being heavily resistant to kinetic based weaponry, but this is not to be relied on in heavy combat conditions, or against anti-armor explosives and high caliber plasma weaponry.

In case of direct physical damage to the user, the suit is capable of minor medical treatment such as release of painkillers through direct skin transfer, blood clot application, as well as temperature modification to heat or cool the injury as needed. The suit cannot mend a broken limb, but it can work to mitigate internal and external bleeding, and keep the user active and alert.

  
_Miscellaneous Info_

The Powered Suit has a series of cordimite capacitor cells that retain a full charge of 400 gigawatts of power, with 200 gWh power consumption at full combat capacity for an operational time of two hours, or a maximum operating time of approximately four hours at minimal combat capacity, a rate of 100 gWh power consumption. Self repair systems require a large continuous charge of power to effect total repair than is possessed by internal cores, meaning that without any substantial recharge time, the nanotech repair systems cannot affect hard-armor or mechanism repairs.

As intended, the Powered Suit is capable of adapting various foreign technologies into its arsenal, such as new ballistic types and beam weapons. Due to unknown issues during construction of the Powered Suit, this capability is greatly limited. Some weapon types may still be assimilated, but the functionality may not be as efficient, or could contribute to an eventual suit failure.

The Powered Suit’s sensor suite and visual information processing systems include a scanning module capable of data processing of individual materials and objects, as well as a burst sweep mapping system for reconnaissance and region data. For visual enhancements, the existing firmware contains low light and night vision settings, base level thermal scanning, and a combat information central relay mode including energy beam and ballistic arc motion calculation prediction displays. The scanning suite is also capable of determining structural stability and density levels of structures, but cannot do so as a passive scan. 

The Powered Suit is capable of the _m’ru’ma'ri_ transformation, or “changing sphere”, a state in which the user is transformed into an energy form while the Armor matter conforms into a ball shape 80 centimeters in diameter. This transformation take specific mental states to reach, and the armor user must reach a state of mind letting go of the concept of static self. This capability is due to a module created by the Mother Brain that replicates the _m'ru'ma'ri_ relics of the Ancient Chozo. In change sphere form, electro pulse “bombs" can be generated in lieu of the power beam, allowing for travel demolitions to clear debris and open passages.

Being constructed of an advanced nanolaminate bendezium alloy, the powered suit is extremely light-weight in comparison to equivalent Terran built Powered Armors, allowing greater movement and tighter motions, and being able to withstand temperatures of up to 400° centigrade before heat bleed to the user occurs. The Powered Suit possesses a recall trans-location feature to and from a physical containment chamber when not in use, and is synchro-connected via the base armor techsuit, nicknamed “Zero Armor”, which acts as a light suit of body armor in emergency situations. Without this Zero Armor, or a similarly synchronized techsuit, the Armor cannot be called to the user.

If the entire suit system somehow is disabled, an emergency release is available, and when activated, all latches and internal retention systems release, and the user is left to escape. This could prove to be fatal in the presence of harmful atmosphere or vacuum, but this is a last resort and is the only means to give a possibility of escape.

**[END RECORD. FURTHER DATA AVAILABLE IN FORTHCOMING CODEX.]**


End file.
